🔒Remove your personal information from the web at joindeleteme.com/DROPS and use code DROPS for 20% off 🙌 DeleteMe international Plans: international.joindeleteme.com Thanks for watching guys, this one was a heck of a trip.
Was this OG a 2 Part video? Nice that sponsors give you the power to give us double the output. Hope you don't burn out - with the sad topics you report on.
Hey man, been a subscriber since you covered the naked meta in Dark and Darker. Not sure if you remember me, but I went hard on you in the comments and then apologized later in chat on one of your streams cus you were doing great journalism and I just had to give you props for that. Anyways, I know it’s not a popping game anymore but you should cover DaD again cus you might find there’s a good story in there about why it failed to keep up the player count; even though it’s back on steam now for free; after they launched it on their own launcher for $35. There’s MMR and now the lead dev wants to take it in a whole new ‘original vision’ direction than it’s been going. I bought it when they launched their own launcher but haven’t played since, and I can’t quite put my finger on why. Anyways, you’re my favorite journalist to watch now, you’ve improved a-lot! Peace
Your commentary about Halo 2’s launch really resonated with me and I’m sure a lot of your older audience. It was a magical time, I’m grateful I got to experience it knowing now how gamings future has played out
A great and very important video the Xbox leadership should watch and read the comments here. Sad that Phil Spencer and all the people we put our trust in are silent. I mean seriously is Phil still alive? I was a Xbox fan from the first Xbox on. Had all of them (even have 3 Series X at home for my kids as well) and was even a huge fan of Kinect and their TV features. But last month I built my first gaming PC cause I was just bored and annoyed to death from Xbox and their decisions and games. It's just nothing on Xbox anymore what's worth my time. All mediocre casual boring (yeah Starfield boooooooooring) stuff. Since I have my PC a whole new world opened up for me. It's sad to see what Xbox has become and scary to think what the future will look like if this "trend" is going on...
Ya I asked for Halo I remember getting the see thru green halo original Xbox and Halo CE bundle and that was all we need because we played only that until Halo 2 came out.
Naw... it was Ninja Gaiden that blew up the console to even have the Halo audience in the first place.... Ninja was the Consoles Hype Man... I was there! It was the first souls like difficulty game... Then halo and live hit about the same time 05-06ish
"they chase the people that don't care about their products" is so 2010s and 2020s. Seems like every franchise, ever company, every studio is doing just that, ignoring their core audience and just chase ghosts, ghosts who don't buy their products
Not all. There have been some explosive products that are aligned with their customers. Baldur’s Gate 3, Witcher, and others earned huge success because they made great products.
Think it all ties back to the desire for infinite growth forever. Companies cannot simply be satisfied with steady revenue from their core audience. They must always grow, make more money than last quarter. So they believe they HAVE to get more customers, so they're always trying to pull in people who aren't customers, which can make sense...but not when you end up driving away your previous core audience in the process.
And I'm glad it is. Yeah I had a 360 and played it a ton, but only because so many of those games weren't available on PC. Now they are, and I can play them the way I want. On PC.
Same way PS3 was able to regain the initiative in the last years when it released bangers like the last of us & MGS4. Microsoft focussed to much on the kinect and much less in exclusives.
I'm almost 34, when I talk to these kids who are just a few years younger than me I feel like I'm talking to someone from a different time period. It's amazing and sad how quickly gaming changed.
Its not just gaming. Im 30 and when i was a kid EVERYONE had seen the lotr movies. When rings of power came out i asked some people at work if they had seen the movies and none of them had. For a lot of people rings of power is the first and probobly only view into a world that litteraly defined modern fantasy. 😕
Same, but I'm 44, so in that sense, I feel the same way about you guys. I was in my early 20s during the Halo craziness, so I had the perspective of seeing where gaming had come from from the NES days. Hell, I even worked at Game Stop as a teenager when cartridge systems were all that existed, and I remember the launch of the PS1 and the craziness at the store when that launched. Saw the Dreamcast come and go while I worked there too. Working there during those industry shaping days was something I'm always glad I got to experience.
For me personally, there was a very specific reason why I loved the 360. My parents were divorced and I'd change houses every saturday. Because of this, I had a 360 at my dads house and a second 360 at my moms house. The beauty of the 360 was that you could take off the hard drive and swap them between consoles. So every week, I'd just bring the HD along with me and continued playing. And ofcourse the massive catalog of great SINGLE PLAYER games. This video touched on GoW and Halo 3, but don't forget the golden COD run of MW1, MW2, Black Ops & Black Ops 2. You had GTA4, TLAD, TBOGT, & GTA5. Ac2 & AC Brotherhood were also fantastic. And don't get me started on Halo Reach, imho the greatest Halo to this day. The 360 era was so great because all of those gaming titles were in their prime too.
one thing that always makes me chuckles are the bethesda and activision buy-outs. if you told young me 10 years ago that bethesda, activison as well as blizzard would become xbox studios, i would tell you that you from now on NEED to own an xbox system. Now tho. who cares? bethesda can't make a modern RPG to save their lives and activison-blizzard-king is really goddamn disgusting. i legit couldn't care less about a new elder scrolls and i am to old to still give that much of a shit about COD or be hyped for a new WOW expansion.
Someone has to say it: Phil is a horrible CEO. TEN YEARS and nothing to show for it. He says they lost the most important generation, but did you even try to claw it back with stellar must play exclusives? No. Supposedly he's a big gamer and should know a good game from a bad one. So why are you letting all your studios cook hot kaka garbage, Phil? Wrangle them in!
@@HitPoint19 at worst, he's horrible. at best, he's incompetent. he's said a lot of good things, promised a lot of good things that we can reasonably stand behind. but nothing really came of it. not a dang thing.
@@HitPoint19 truth P3 is too interlocked with MSFT. He's running xbox like it's office365 and it just doesn't work that way. Xbox was at its best when they were a separate entity not operating the way business software operates. They care about shareholder value, utilizing temp outsourced labor, aggressive schedules, cost cutting, and heavy monetization. They won't recover
As Phil Spencer once famously put it "If we lose our way with Halo, we lose our way with Xbox" 343 Industries didn't just kill Halo. 343 Industries ruined Xbox's identity.
Phil Spencer's said a lot of things. It's time to not care what he and Microsoft say and look to other options that can fill Xbox's hole and give competition to Sony. Like encouraging Valve to make a Steam console 2.0 for the living room. Really ramp up SteamOS to make PC games as easy to use as consoles. I'd rather Xbox be broken away from Microsoft to be a 100% independent company since Microsoft is only using and destroying the Xbox to drive Game Pass subscriptions. So why invest anymore in the Xbox? Microsoft's GamePass killed it in order to go Netflix gaming.
UA-camrs like you are to game journalists what indie game creators are to AAA devs, you bring us the content that the more established brands seem to close their eyes to over and over again.
The difference is most of us are here instead of places like IGN or PCgamer channel or website. I don't care about people working there anymore since they mostly shill for gaming companies nowadays.
What? His script is literally ripped from a recent 4 hour video that just last week hit you tube trending. None of what he said here was his own content or inspiration.
@Pswayze23 not really. It's literally a video about how xbox doesn't care anymore. They are just chasing a dollar. Not saying the mistake wasn't bad. But it doesn't ruin the video at all.
that E3 2013 moment was the single biggest mistake Xbox made and haven’t recovered since. Sony been fumbling for a minute and Xbox still can’t catch up
Yup, it really showed the difference when in high school pretty much everyone I knew had a 360 and I only knew one person that had a PS3. By the next generation it was the total opposite.
Honestly Sony is in an equally bad position as Xbox these days. Don't forget all your remakes, concord's 400 million loss, skull and bones, I mean neither console has anything going for it. Sony's move to California in 2016 has started to bear fruit, again refer to concord, spider ma'am 2, Alan Woke 2. Among other things, Microsoft doesn't have the exclusives anymore, their new Xbox head is a checklist hire who said let's make women more ugly, and less curvy. We're kinda le bone d.
@@christianedwards9025 equally? Hell no. Sure concord failed but the console exclusives this year are the best games and can be played at ps5 only, helldivers, ff7 rebirth, stellar blade, astrobot, wukong ( i know wukong, helldivers can be played on pc but still a console exclusive) it is a great year for ps5 xbox however, has... Nothing?
@@antagonist7 how many of those did sony go against themselves. Hell divers 2, stellar blade censorship patch. Bro wake up, you think Sony whose now based in the land of liberal crazyiness is even better? Most of your new games are remakes! They had to redo one of the final fantasy games! That lame company set up No Man's Sky to fail, that only succeeded through their own hard work to redeem themselves. They would've preferred if Wukong had more checklists inserted into that game too. Wake up, Sony isn't in a better position, they increased their playsation plus prices recently too, and don't get me started on how often they get hacked, you're a fool if you think that's an enjoyable experience. Don't get me started on the more recent thing regarding certain games already bought through steam needing a psn account now too, which if you're in a certain country you can't access. The new horizon dawn remake. Yeah that's right, another remake, and if you're in a country without psn oh well too bad. Shakes my head at you in disappointment.
@@christianedwards9025 those things doesnt really affect people who have a ps5 those are pc problems. And hacked?? Ive been with playstation for 20 years and not once have i been hacked
I worked at EB Games (Canadian version of GameStop) for the Halo2 midnight launch. It was absolutely insane the hype that was there. Even us employees working were super stoked about it.
@@Grom8P it really was. The buzz, the hype, the excitement. We had people camping outside our store for HOURS before that Halo 2 launch. I think we ended up working until about 2 or 3 in the morning that night. It was crazy.
@@haydn9315 I think MAYBE EB Games stood for "electronics Boutique" but I'm not 100% sure about that. I'm pretty sure all of our EB Games stores are now all Game stops though. It's been a lot of years for me. 🤣
I disagree that they are buying their way _OUT_ of problems, I think they are *buying their way **_INTO_** problems.* The acquisitions of studios, only to close them, is a desperate move by a company that has spent too much and put out nothing of worth.
If I hadn't discovered indie games in 2013-14 (Papers, Please and Banished were my entry points), I might not still be a gamer today. I haven't paid anything close to full price for a AAA game since Fallout 4 after applying my "three patches and a Steam sale" rule.
Thinking about the Xbox 360 and the dashboard brings tears to my eyes. The sound it made when you got an achievement made it feel like and accomplishment. Good times
I have a modded OG Xbox and Xbox 360. If I want an Xbox experience, I'll do that. I also have Halo on Steam which is what keeps Halo alive with the modding community, not current Microsoft.
“In their future the console is no longer the endgame, instead they are aiming for a world where subscriptions reign supreme - this shift isn’t about convenience for the customer, it’s about control.” 52:09 for the timestamp. This is scary stuff. I don’t like where we are headed.
the sub-based model of gamepass is what they like because parents buy it for their kids and then their kids play all the slop made by activists. it's not about making money. microsoft has money. it's about making your kids retarded
If the Tango shutdown and the Halo contract work taught us anything, is that Microsoft still doesn't care about fostering talent, and with how hard making games is, that's the most important thing in this industry, i mean, Nintendo still has a bunch of developers from its early days of game dev. Also, you know, Microsoft shot themselves on the foot by conditioning their player base on not buying games(Game Pass).
Small correction: Resident Evil 4 was the first to try the over-the-shoulder camera angle, Gears of War couldn't possibly inspired that, seeing how RE4 was released in 2005, while Gears was released in 2006.
resident evil 4 came out before gears of war, did you miss that it was originaly a gamecube game? it's the game everyone tried to immitate, even gears of war.
Monopolizing, buying out the competition and consolidating the industry is just...Microsoft's core M.O., so the real surprise is that Xbox ever served customers in the first place.
You can also just emulate all of that pretty easily, with more options around controller settings, save states, framerates, even fanmade texture packs and such. Plus the games look better just with the basic emulation for anything that was vector based (as opposed to raster). If you have the systems still around that's fine, but even that's a pain with the physical footprint, connecting to modern TVs, etc. With emulation you can have 4 decade of games in one location, using whatever controllers you want.
The Saturn was the god console of RPG's, not great at 3D rendering but great for sprites. I remember playing Tomb raider on Saturn and then going to my friends house and he had it on PS1 and I was blown away at how much better the PS1 was for rendering polygons
But those can eventually break or wear out. That’s why emulation is better imo(not to mention save states, optional enhanced visuals to modernize games, and more)
40:38 lol man the halo tv show. I watched the first episode and sent my friend a message like "bro you gotta watch the halo tv show its amazing" i watched episode 2 and 3 and was like "bro nevermind dont bother" what a destruction of a franchise.
❌ Less creative campaign team challenges ❌ MTX robbing flexes from hard-earned cosmetics rewarded to skilled campaign or multiplayer players ❌ Too many game editions ❌ Less focus on couch co-op ❌ Games too expensive at launch for kids/parents, so they end up waiting or forgetting and missing the school trend to play together. Just my personal observations that really crush me to this day.
And all of this all started when people were willing to pay for the Horse Armor DLC in Skyrim and that is all the suits saw for future monetization throughout the industry. Every warning it will come to this was dismissed as "if you don't like it don't buy". "Monetization" brought us here.
@@바보Queen Millennial. I wouldn't be so fast on that one, there's enough evidence to the contrary that it's a contributing factor in Halo's downfall, as Legendary Drops mentions it in the video and other long-term fans agree. Why wouldn't you want it?
Halo 3 was $60 when it released in 2007. Everyone bought it. Because $60 games were the norm. Now free to play games are the norm and because of that we have shitty games with microtransactions
Interesting video to me because I am a "Sony kid" that only owned Playstation systems since the PS1 era. My interests in videogames are solo player experiences, and heavily story focused games like RPGs, so I never actually played Halo nor Gears (I do own the Masterchief collection on PC now but don't have time to play it for now). So I am not super aware of it is for Xbox fans these days compares to how it was back then. Yeah, it was a quite informative video. Thanks.
Don Mattrick was more a businessman, not an innovator that Xbox was being so far and still needed. He is still the face of the failure Xbox One is for me.
@@PatMatNI disagree. Xbox momentum stalled after the turn of the decade. Don Mattrick and those who supported his decisions just helped in putting 2 nails into the Xbox coffin when there was only 1 nail before with the PS3 coming back from the dead to outsell the 360 despite a 3-4 year headstart. Xbox fans like to pretend 2014 was the turning point. The bleeding out started well before that. Not a hindsight remark now. Anyone who supported Xbox in 2014 categorically needs their heads checked. Maybe if they didn't, MS would have done more for this generation ultimately.
Correction: The decision to make Redfall was not made by Xbox. It was made by Zenimax when they were in the process of acquisition to pump up the value of the company. Arkane developers were hoping that Microsoft would cancel the project but Phil Spencer did what he thought was permitting studio autonomy and kept all projects on course after acquisition.
To add to the mess, Resident evil 4 came out a few years before Gears of War.... A bloody classic everyone knows about and you still fucked up the timeline of influences
@@LoliconSamalik Funny thing about that: He could have dragged Xbox for their own incompetence losing them Resident Evil 4. Back in the OG Xbox days, Xbox had an opportunity to snatch a RE4 exclusivity deal. Mikami's team were having frustrations developing for the PS2 so he was going around looking for fresh lawns. The Xbox guys arranged a meeting with Mikami to negotiate, but Mikami sat through the meeting confused about what "philosophy" the Xbox's translator is pitching him. Negotiation broke down, Mikami bowed and left the meeting disappointed and Xbox lost the RE4 exclusivity deal to Nintendo.
I will add this...the PS3 was higher in cost because of its Blu ray drive, which was a new technology and a sony product they really wanted to push. I remember buying mine as a more affordable blu ray player that played video games. Standalone blu ray players at the time were $500 - $1000. If the Playstation people said people need to work more to afford it, then that's incorrect. And the whole Bungie acquisition delaying Halo's release on the PC a year was really annoying. I was so pumped for that on the PC.
I had a Wii, 360 and PS3 at the time. In addition to the utility of the Blu Ray drive, the PS3 got the most use due to use its varied library and exclusives. I will say this though, the 360 is great if you like STGs. This was the last and best console generation.
There were a lot of combining factors that resultet in the PS3 being so expensive, it wasn't just the drive. Sony got comfortable after the PS2 and figured players would choose Sony regardless.
Playstation did the same thing and thought they could get away with it too. Sony has given Xbox dozens of opportunities to take over but after the failure of the Xbox One their is NOTHING that can build that trust back even tho the Series X and Xbox overall is 1000x better. You can slide hundreds of xbox 360 games into that disc drive RIGHT NOW and play them with zero issues, same with even the OG Xbox. Sony only has PS4. If you wanna play PS3, PS2 or PS1 games you own on a console YOU bought. You have to repurchase them on the store if they even have your game at all on the store. Sony is a pathetic disgrace of a console company that gets carried off the backs of game studios they don't even give the respect for. Hence why Square Enix and even Atlus (people who created Persona) are no longer gonna be PlayStation Exclusive.
I wonder what their though process behind this was. I imagine it going something like: "Don't let them play the old games, they bought from us. That will make them more likely buy our new console." And nobody said "no" to that.
@@DieKupfnerbergerSteigerI've always thought, maybe incorrectly, that backwards compatibility is really only super important to a small, loud minority. When most people I've known have bought a new system, pick one, they've bought it to play the new, hopefully more impressive games that are being released for the new console. At least among the people I know backwards compatibility has never been a deal breaker, and even when they had a console with it they never used that function.
As an european it's always interresting to hear people share their memories of Xbox 360, since here ps3 outsold it by twice the ammount. (except for UK) Heck, in my circle of friends only one has the console.
When I was a child/teen, I didn't even know Playstation had competition. The only non-Playstation consoles I knew about were the Gameboy and DS. Then with the internet I finally heard of the 360 but didn't care. So the American perspective is always interesting for me because all 3 consoles were always in good competition while in Europe, outside of a few Nintendo successes like the Wii or Gameboy, it was basically a Playstation fortress.
I still remember getting an Xbox 360 with Halo 3 for Christmas and I literally cried lol. Made some really good life long friends and memories through that game.
Physical gaming is important too. Same thing, they aren’t pushing digital for your convenience. It’s for complete control. Even if you don’t prefer physical games we need to at least support it as an available option. We should never support less buyer options and ownership.
I hear you, and I would love physical options, but discs can’t even hold the size of massive triple A games anymore so what form of media are they going to sell them on at a reasonable price? Genuine question.
A dual-layer blu-ray holds 50gb of data. Most games are still not 50gb, mostly unoptimized AAA titles are above that, plus you can add a second disc to expand that to 100gb. We all remember double, triple, even quadruple CD disc games from the PS1 era. So we’re not out of room for physical media just yet. Plus, funny enough, we could be going back to a cartridge style layout ala microsd cards that can expand up to 8 TB, which Nintendo has been moving over to with their cartridge format.
@@Neonagi Even a lot of indie games are above 50gb. Not to mention, I don't want to buy a disc filled with with 50gb of worthless data because all the updates since its printing are 50gb in size.
Is our generation gonna be the old grumpy ones that complain about how good stuff used to be while we see the world go to shit, and still see the younger generation enjoy the shit and blame us for being grumpy and nostalgic about old stuff, while we think that the younger gen don't even know what they're missing, because this shit is what they have grown up in. It's their standard.
Like night follows day isn't it? Father time is undefeated. Those rubbishing our opinions majorly or entirely now will grow to reminisce on these times even..
Maybe I'm just out of touch and that's fine if so, but when I look around I'm not seeing a whole lot of the "younger generation" enjoying anything. They are one of the most depressed, and medicated generations to date.
It's a little of both. Nostalgia plays a part but I think there's a level of objectivity that exists as well. When I showed a video of Halo 2's launch to my nephews (14 and 17), they said they were kinda jealous that these things don't exist anymore. They've also recently started to play older games and the oldest is starting to understand why games were "better" at that time. Even he's getting annoyed by MTX's and uncreative games now.
@@ninjinmugenyeh the younger generation is now apathetic to most shit. We know we’re f&@ked by the economy, nothing is just fun it’s all dei or some sort of message being shoved down our throats, we can’t say what we want or have an opinion, friendship is dying, dating is cooked, getting a job is almost impossible bc you need like 10 years of work experience even if it’s your first minimum wage job, and we’re probably gonna have WWIII. So most of gen z is just living in their own little worlds in their heads acting like they have mental illnesses for clout and not giving a f about anything anymore bc we know we’re doomed anyway so why care. It’s getter very nihilistic
It really is up to us gamers to turn this around. I firmly believe we are in the beginning of another gaming crash and it's severity and length will be determined by us, not corporations. Do your research and avoid devs/studios that are not gamer focused. This can mean a number of things to each person individually, but do not spend your money blindly anymore.
The only way to stop this gaming crash, it for devs to make the games that gamers want. Stop catering to this mythical modern audience, that either doesnt exist, doesnt play games or exists in such small numbers, they arent enough to make profit from! If devs continue on that track, then let gaming crash and crash hard!!
@@prezzeruk4054 The only way devs will go back to making the games we want is to see their "modern" focused movement fail. As nearly everyone has said over and over again recently, gamers have no aversion to diversity in games when it is organic. It is when quotas and checkboxes are on a whiteboard of development goals that make games insufferable. The trend of voting with our wallets has started but it needs to grow from a ripple to a tidal wave where it ends in the closure of studios on a consistant basis. I wish no ill will towards those in the industry just trying to make a living and great games, but it is going to take a lot of effort to course correct this ship.
i agree with you. my only counter would be that we are actually in one right now, and that a crash wouldnt look like it did back in the day due to the massive growth of the industry over the past decades. id present that Ubisofts state, Sony's recent fumbles, Nintendo's notable greed and anti consumer actions, and Microsofts incredible decline show we are well into the crash already. Indie games will keep the industry "afloat" so to speak and only the corpos will really feel the hurt.
@@paradigmcoterie2606 I agree with you also. When I speak of a crash I am mainly speaking of AAA and in some cases AA game studios games not selling, which leads to lay offs, which leads to less games on the market etc etc. Absolutely there are a ton of indie devs out there that will continue to thrive and likely moreso as this continues. But we all want great AAA titles to play to go with the great indie games. So this crash must play out so we can see a return to gamer focused studios instead of the current socially driven content.
34:36 Gamepass didn't launch during the 360 era, it was Xbox One era. Gamepass launched in 2017, 4 entire years after the launch of Xbox One in 2013, WELL after the 360 era was over.
I'm over 50 so I've seen 8 bit (Vic 20, BBC Micro, Sinclair Spectrum C64), 16 bit (Amiga, Atari ST, PC (dos)), 32bit (Archimedes, PC (windows)), Consoles (Xbox, Player Station) - tapes > CDs > DVDs > BDs (briefly) > Steam, etc. It's been a wild, interesting ride. One thing which has become a real hinderance in the last 10 years which has caused our current woes is over bearing corporatism. It's what is killing almost everything in entertainment (particularly AAA games and Hollywood) and has come about, I think, by too much investment money sloshing around at the top end of society due to the (up until recently) really low 0.5% interest rates (it's also sucked the money out of the rest of society).
Love this video man! Was always a huge fan of Sony and Nintendo growing up, but once Xbox released and 360 released, I had changed sides. Kinect ruined my love for Xbox because of all of the reasons you explained. But I’ll never forget those times and how great it was. Honestly, gaming hasn’t been the same since the PS4 era, but I’m invested in it forever and have been for almost 35 years. We have to be smart on who we support now.
That's why if I play a game on Gamepass, I download a cracked version so that I own it. Actually, I do that with physical copies of games I buy as well to bypass any DRM or online checks that could lead to the game being "taken away" from me at some arbitrary point. My cracked game catalog is now over 200 games deep and growing every day, and I'll own those games forever.
@@joncarter3761 Nope. After the two years it only came to the PS2. The original Xbox didn't get a port. It eventually came to the 360, but that was in 2011.
@@AmartharDrakestoneWrong, it came on the PS2 9 months after the GameCube version came out. If you’re going to factcheck someone, at least make sure your facts are correct too lmao.
I had to watch this video in segments like through work between jobs and then finished it after getting home and getting cleaned up and having dinner and it held my attention so much that I didnt even think until like 10 minutes until the end to be like dude just how long is this damn video and scrolled over it to see the duration and was like, holy shit. You can definitely see the love in the craft, keep up the good work, but try to not burn yourself out sir. Great vid as always.
I appreciate this video man, great job. I'm much older today, fully grey beard gamer missing the old days of gaming. One thing that sticks out for me is remembering being so blown away by gaming and thinking to myself imagine what gaming will be when I'm much older. It can only get better, right.... No, all I'm left with is disappointment today and feeling nostalgic about the late 90's and early 2000's of gaming. Man, what the hell happened. Greed and politics destroying my beloved hobby...😢
It sucks to see Xbox in this situation. I owned the original and the 360(also, a PS2, PS3 and Gamecube) and the 360 was a fantastic console. The original blade menu is such a sleek, minimalist design. And the games were fun. Especially when you had titles, like Halo 3, Fable, COD Modern Warfare etc.
Some of my most fond gaming memories occurred in those very early Xbox live lobbies. I'm talking 2002-2003ish. I could not get enough PGR2. Miss that series so much. Then a few years later, the X360 was just as influential. I was in the military, and everyone was on live at that time. hell of a video sir.
Halo, Oblivion, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect. These gamers were my childhood on the xbox. What is getting released these days? Its sad to see a titan fall.
Halo was the only true exclusive on that console besides gears. I was on Xbox until the one then swapped to pc. I have no idea how they never really made any franchis3s
For me, they screwed me over HARD. I cancelled my Live subscription on my console, only to find out I was still being charged, so I contacted Support and cancelled again... Only to find out I WAS STILL BEING CHARGED... Oh, and the card they were charging was cancelled but it was still charging the main account that the card had originally been connected to, still not sure how it was bypassing that... The third and final time I managed to finally cancel my subscription and at the same time I completely swore off Xbox because they had literally been robbing me, oh yeah I didn't mention that, of course they didn't actually refund the money despite admitting it was their f**k ups that caused it... F**k Xbox.
Same thing happened to me… at the end I just asked my bank to refund me and they did… I got lucky but its fucked up how if I put my debit card it automatically connects to my whole bank account… so even if I changed the card they will still charge me
Gears absolutely was inspired BY RE4, not the other way around. Re4 popularized the over the shoulder perspective...this is well known. Might wanna fix that
As a dedicated Xbox player for over 15 years, I finally put it to rest and got rid of all Xbox consoles because gaming has just turned into something I want no part of. It’s no longer enjoyable.
My decision to purchase an Xbox was always the idea that the Xbox was a alternative to purchasing a PC, for those that did not want all of the additional responsibilities of purchasing a PC. Microsoft has fumbled the bag and ball in the gaming sphere, when they could have sought out PC game developers to put their early access and betas on their platform, giving them a competitive edge over Sony. Instead we witnessed mass purchases of properties and companies, with very little to show for it and here we are now.
very true, I always had big hopes for the Xbox Preview (early access) program but the stuff there is just nothing at all. I was even Xbox insider since beginning of time but even there nothing is going on anymore. Just asking me if I like pizza...
Reminder in regard to zenimax sony was making deals to make starfield an exclusive to play station when microsoft bought zenimaz (at the time starfield hype was big)
This is probably relevant to the conversion, and I don't want this to come of as an attack, but I'm not sure you've noticed; when you say at 13:30 "Halo 2 was the moment that gaming went mainstream" you are being ludicrously US-centric. Microsoft sold 24M consoles worldwide, which isn't bad for a first try, but you talk about Halo 2 being the moment gaming goes mainstream while the PS2 sold 150M, more than 6 times the volume of consoles! Like, yes Halo was HUGE, even in Europe. But it was not that much of a shift in gaming history. GTA Vice City is more relevant contender for that "going mainstream" on the PS2. The DS, the Wii...that's going mainstream. Halo 2 sold 8 millions worldwide, which is big for the time. And I don't want to minimize how much Xbox Live on that particular game shifted Sony's vision of the online features for the next console...but "gaming goes mainstream" heeeeeee idk. There isn't a Xbox in the top 5 best selling consoles of all time: it's just Sony or Nintendo. This is not to say that they are bad machines. I didn't particularly care for the first Xbox when it released (except for Splinter Cell that just blew my mind and was a lesser version when it released on PS2) but the Xbox 360 was and still is one of my favorite consoles ever and brought such a wealth of great ideas from the UI, better online features, achievements, a hand to help bring indies to consoles with the XNA and the avenue to sell their games without the hurdle of boxed copies, thanks to the marketplace. Also, I'm not saying that in order to survive Xbox requires to be the top dog. What I am saying is that either Xbox fans or Microsoft have created themselves a little fantasy where the Xbox were the most influential machines and all...and it wasn't outside of the US. Which leaves Europe and Japan (and nowadays you can add West and East Asia, South America and parts of Africa) as big territories where Microsoft never got brand loyalty. Dunno how it's going now, but in Europe, it's either PlayStation or PC. And a Nintendo on the side or for the kids. I'm not sure how well Xbox is doing out here... It feels like a huge blind spot.
Foreal. We need true American gaming back! My mother bless her soul took me to the midnight release of halo 2 on a school night. I ordered the special edition with the metal tin case. Everyone in line at EB games was excited, people ordered pizza while waiting. I will never forget the moment and I realized looking back how much my mother loved me and just wanted me to be happy. My greatest gaming moments came with me going with my mom to the store to pick up a GameCube or when Pokemon base set came out I went to the card store and opened my pack while she was driving and pulled secret charizard! This video took me back!
“American gaming”…. Yeah… newsflash: America is NOT the gaming Capital of the World. Maybe Thats Why Xbox is failing. Unable to Connect with an international audience. In Europe and Asia - a huge gaming market many times bigger than America, Xbox doesnt have any foothold-
Lol I still remember my dad taking me to toys r us to get Pokémon red wayyyyy back. Also him taking me to blockbuster on Fridays after school to rent a game. Good times
what people dont realise is xbox only ever was on top during the 360 era for a little while. after sonys failure of a launch their sales figures caught up to the 360
When a console company says it'll run 4k @120fps and the game devs cap games at 30 fps that's a serious issue in my book. That is like buying a Challenger Hellcat and the dealer refuses to give you the red key. Where TF is my performance I was promised!!!??? That's why I finally canceled my game pass and play on PC.
I rarely comment on videos, but I want to let you know that you did a phenomenal job on this one. So much heart and effort have been put into this and it shows. Despite being one hour long, it went by a flash. I'm happy to see with this video that I'm not the only one looking back at those halcyon days where gaming was all about having fun and creating memories. I've been following you for a couple months now and this channel is a hidden gem and has been refreshing. Stay cool, stay righteous, stay safe and I'll see you in the next one.
I also got Xbox One for its multimedia aspect, but I feel Microsoft underestimated the rise of smart tvs. They effectively made the multimedia aspect of Xbox, the most marketed aspect of that console, redundant. People didn't need to buy the console, it came standard with most new tvs. That plus a lack of interesting games made the Xbox One an anchor for them. Their bluray player is also crap when playing dvds; audio runs out of sync on my tv. They've never bothered to fix it and instead blame it on my television. A television that has no issues when I use that exact same tv and dvd in a PS4.
People keep insisting on this nonsense that Phil Spencer saved the brand. No, Phil made the Xbox a toothless shark, he spent all these years making bad decisions, he took the firepower out of the Xbox and made it an unnecessary product, I repeat Phil spent all these years trying to convince the world that consoles were unnecessary, and all he managed to do was convince the world that his console was unnecessary! Nothing complicated, fire the guy, fire his minions.
one of the worst things about this generation is just the existence of the Series S. Rumor has it that split screen on DB Sparking Zero is limited to the dullest level entirely due to Series S compatibility. Not the first time a game has been crippled or just hasn't come out on XBox thanks to the Series S limitations.
@@Raeaskuo And now they will probably ruin CoD, Fallout and all the others as well... When they acquired them I still had hope they will improve these games but watching what they have done recently made me lose all my hope in that.
The whole DRM thing is so hilarious, did you know Sony had the same idea and shifted it on the spot when they witnessed the audience reaction to it on the Xbox One presentation as well as adjusting their price
Not on the spot, they first has similar ideas because EA was pressuring them but then they decided that it was a dumb idea and changed it up. Their price was always gonna be 400, microsoft made it 500 because of kinect.
@@Someone-lg6dino they didn’t, Sony was always aware that their major games sells physically especially in their home country of Japan. Locking in always online and trying to kill the second hand physical marketplace was always anti consumer and Sony knew this.
Remember when having cable with over 500 channels? But nothing to watch? Streaming services have ALL these shows but still nothing to watch. Gamepass has all these games but still nothing to play. For me at least. Their original IP’s are in shambles. Even some making a come back but I am still very weary of it. Xbox just doesn’t have any good exclusives anymore. Everything is on PC now. I sold my xbox. Maybe in the next few years, I will consider buying one again. If they ever will come out with one.
I think if we want to get influential products back, it will take a complete reshuffle and a fresh start. Gamers need to become developers, not people who are not in the industry or who have poor skills. It is understandable that gamers don't buy. These big companies have lost their credibility and have squeezed the value out of the IP. And they ignore the developers who really work hard.
There was a lot of things building up to that moment, but that super short clip really did feel like the gut punch that forced their downfall. Me not knowing all the behind the scenes business decisions as a teenager, it absolutely felt like the moment that started it all.
@@Zlagie I didn’t know anything about the whole situation until I saw that clip in the feed on UA-cam back in the day. Didn’t follow gaming news at all at the time because I was 13-14 years old.
@Duckman8213 I was around 15 at the time. The first time I remember hearing bad news about Xbox was articles leaking info regarding the new system, known then only as the code word Durango. News leaked about the system not allowing used games, and mandating login once every 24 hours. The leak was so bizzare that it seemed like a joke! I was on the PS3 side of the console war, and I knew something was really off when even Xbox players were super upset about Durango. It felt bad even then. When the reveal of the Xbone happened, the whole show felt boring as sin and like they already lost. When that PS4 reveal happened with the used games ad, it was like the shot heard round the world. The console war was so toxic back then, it floored me to see Xbox diehards announce their decision to get a PS4. I knew PS4 was gonna sail smoothly for the rest of its generation.
"we have a product for people who don't want to always have online conectivity it's called Xbox 360" I will never forget that my first ever "if you dont like it don't buy it" ironically by the end of that year i was playing TF2
I'm not a huge gamer - at least not anymore. Was more of a PC gamer than Xbox but even I can remember just how big Halo 2 and the Xbox was. Thanks for the video - really took me back through my childhood playing these games at friends' houses and whatnot. Also just want to say that I really appreciate these video essays. It's a really cool peek behind the curtains for me, as I don't know much of the corporate history behind the games and consoles, and it's clear how deeply passionate you are about the subject matter. The whole video is well done - love the b reel of the various games as you discuss them - and I think your delivery makes it really engaging. Cheers!
Halo leaving behind split-screen co-op multiplayer is what made me stop caring about the Xbox. Why I need a console if I cant play with my friends on the same couch?
It's why I'm currently playing on the ps4 (don't have a ps5) and playing all the newer EDF games because they have lots of content, no microtransactions outside of pre-order deluxe edition, and very long campaign all doable in split screen.
I dont get why people think Xbox is ushering in the death of gaming. The only thing they're going to cause is their own death - both Sony and Nintendo have been been beating the brakes off of them for multiple generations now.... Oh but the xbox boogeyman is gonna take over gaming any day now? Not sure how that works
i disagree PlayStation is also getting worse with fewer actually good games coming out falling in line with the game pass with PlayStation plus 3 tiers of it too and a lot of people just want to play something and have that iconic feel when playing a video games like with Helldivers 2 for example PlayStation doesn't care about the players they just want the money from there shares Xbox and PlayStation are doing the same thing while Nintendo is falling off trying to keep up and doing the same thing with the subscription to just play a game and they wont drop prices now these are consoles and that's what people are talking about i think its gonna go back to PC gaming the way things are going because is more free no monopoly can control them there PlayStation is putting games on steam because they know thats going to be the new gaming industry and all these indie games making it because theyre doing what big game companies cant... care for the people and the developers
As much as I loved the PlayStation 2 and a little bit towards GameCube during that era, there was something so awesome and special about the original Xbox - the custom soundtracks you could make on a console, the Xbox Live experience, and obviously the games; Fable, CS, Halo, Brute Force, Rainbow Six: Black Arrow, PGR, MechAssault, Panzer Dragoon Orta, and the list just goes on. I still go back and play these games to this day and while I do own a Series X (mainly for BC), I just don’t really care about the current mindset of Xbox as I primarily game on PC and Switch. Nothing grabs me anymore when something releases on their console and Game Pass hasn’t won me over.
Totally same feeling. I don't PC but my Switch is all I play. I have zero interest in the new systems. It's the first time I've ever not cared to own current gen. It's like they do not care about those who are not woke.
I just miss that era because developers and their games ALWAYS looked to shock and impress us. Now, they seem to do everything possible NOT to do those things as they feel doing so is antithetical to making a game appeal to the masses. "Soft modern" is more than just inserting ideologies into games, it's about softening all the edges of a game to make it as milquetoast as humanly possible.
@1_underthesun agreed. I think another big factor is that with the rise of the industry, alot of the creativity is being sidelined to focus on big profit. Can't take creative risks if you're going to shoot for mass market appeal.
Playing OG Halo at a friend's house got me to buy an xbox the next day and was a fan ever since. The 360 days were peak. It's a damn shame how 343 and MS have fumbled Halo time after time since Bungie left though. Resident Evil 4 came out a year before Gears of War. Just sayin' lol. Great video though.
Great vid! One error you mentioned Gears of War in 2006 “over the shoulder” view inspired look a likes one including Resident Evil 4 RE4 came out before Gears on GameCube early 2005
@@davidforman6191 and who knows how much money was wasted on the live service gamble he took with his 1st party studios because all a game needs to be is a live service and the money just comes rolling in
The current console generation really made me stick to PC. I had plans to buy an XSX and a PS5 but got discouraged by how small the library of first party exclusive games they have.. and I say this as I stare at my cabinet full off 360 and PS3 games. It's really disappointing considering how much they brag about the power and technology behind the current gen consoles and yet they don't have enough games to flex
Honestly, there are games, you just have to go look for them now more. Gaming has gotten to the same size as movies or music, and most people don't just listen to the top 10 on the radio. They go out and find bands they like and will make their own playlists. But also, it's bc such a large amount of players are still on last gen. This gen has had a WAY longer tie over than ever before. All the last gen consoles should have been left behind once the chip shortages were cleared up. Yea, it's losing money but its also holding games back and leading to the "this gen has no games" thought that a lot of people wrongfully have.
I moved from pc to ps5 and its sooo easy and carefree, plus couch Coop gaming, and Big tv! Best shift i ever made. Soooo many games i need to get through!
@@Syldarin I'm happy for you. PC gaming can be a pain in the ass to set up sometimes, and if you just don't wanna deal with that nonsense, a console is most likely gonna give you an easier life. But that's pretty rare nowadays. I most of the time hear it the other way around, started on console and now switched over to PC.
Microsoft had lost before the end of the 7th Gen. Yeah, the ps360 days. Xbox was more worried about being a one-stop shop for everything but videogames. Meanwhile sony had not only closed the gap, but actually overtook xbox by the time the 8th had started. Ms corrected the whole red-ring fiasco, but for some gamers, myself included, had moved on from the 360. I owned 3 360's that all red ringed. I bought a ps3 when the slim came out and haven't looked back. Imo, this is what killed the momentum. You made it sound like it was a celebration getting you 360 replaced however many times you got the red ring, but it made me and my friends drop 360 and move on.
23:27 "It genuinely felt like gaming could never get better" And then it never did. I chuckled a bit, but it's really sad. Almost 20 years and the late 90s to mid 2000s remain the golden age for - singleplayer games - shooters of any kind - console multiplayer - social features in multiplayer games and so many other things. Gaming had already peaked and Halo 3 was a swan song, a sun set, misunderstood by contemporaries as the promise of what was yet to come. Nothing came. Halo 3 was the last good Halo game and the last game worth buying a console for.
@@phoenixshell3772 anyone remember some program called "Skype" that used to be the go-to videochat software? They gradually shifted it to trying to have instagram like filters before letting it totally bloat and stagnate into Microsoft Teams. Could've had the Zoom market, but no.
The 360 era was so unique. Video games were synonymous with xbox at the time. People just asked "what's your gamertag?" if they heard you mention games. It was unusual to have a PS3 or gaming PC without also having a 360. By 2010 there were so many different models and used consoles out there, basically anyone could get their hands on one
Honestly having to pay monthly just to play online the games you own, and then to see the games you play have tons of microtransactions is cancer. I haven't touched my consoles since I've had my pc. I can buy a game and play it and mod it how I want.
As a PS guy, I never considered Xbox for halo. I can't name one exclusive game I would switch console for. Not saying sony does it perfectly, but for me to adjust to a new controller and such, it has to be a banger catalog.
They failed to manage their studios and failed to manage the whole Xbox division while the competition put out banger after banger and led the whole industry for game quality.
Great video! I love these long form docu-opinion pieces on gaming. One thing that was huge for XBOX early, that you kinda talked about at 5:44 - the birth of Xbox Media Player (which became Xbox Media Center or XBMC). This dashboard GUI, trimming all the fat from the base Windows UI, really moved the needle in seamlessly providing content to the end user in a casual friendly way to operate; even my 60 year dad at the time could navigate it to play music and movies. It was so popular, Sony basically made their own starting with the PSP and this exists to the PS5 today. It was ported to a linux port, "KODI", that is now used in Amazon Fire Sticks and Roku to this day (although maybe content companies hated KODI because it also enabled piracy). Of course, in the advent of streaming and companies trying their best to funnel consumers to consume (as supposed to playing local files because GIVE ME MONEY), these dashboards are now littered with ads and marketing bullshit. Hell, the XBOX app on PC is awful; goes to show how far, and low, we've come on all fronts from companies claiming to want to provide a "service".
I just realized how much this video reminds me of a quote from the Aeldari in WH40k: "Since the time of The Fall, our race has been haunted, by what we, in our reckless pursuit of hedonistic indulgence, gave birth to (greed and gamepass). Though our dreams once overturned worlds (Halo) and quenched suns (Playstation), we are now but fitful shadows clinging to the edge of existence. All the stars in the sky cannot blot out the hateful glare of the Red Moon's eye (gamers). The birthing place of the Great Enemy (PR) pulses with all the malice of a daemon that is dreaming, and it casts a shadow over all we have ever done, and all we ever shall."
I was part of the XR HoloLens org layoffs during the 343 layoffs and cant agree more... its turned into a soulless company. Feel like this take is pretty much how the tech industry is today in not putting the customer first
It's actually crazy to think a time like that even existed when you look at the current gaming generation. There seems to be a bigger focus on money and exclusivities and microtransactions, over the days of exciting multiplayer games, huge lan parties and couch coop. I hope it comes back one day, but I'm not holding my breath. Impeccable video as always!
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Thanks for watching guys, this one was a heck of a trip.
Was this OG a 2 Part video? Nice that sponsors give you the power to give us double the output.
Hope you don't burn out - with the sad topics you report on.
Hey man, been a subscriber since you covered the naked meta in Dark and Darker. Not sure if you remember me, but I went hard on you in the comments and then apologized later in chat on one of your streams cus you were doing great journalism and I just had to give you props for that. Anyways, I know it’s not a popping game anymore but you should cover DaD again cus you might find there’s a good story in there about why it failed to keep up the player count; even though it’s back on steam now for free; after they launched it on their own launcher for $35. There’s MMR and now the lead dev wants to take it in a whole new ‘original vision’ direction than it’s been going. I bought it when they launched their own launcher but haven’t played since, and I can’t quite put my finger on why. Anyways, you’re my favorite journalist to watch now, you’ve improved a-lot! Peace
Your commentary about Halo 2’s launch really resonated with me and I’m sure a lot of your older audience. It was a magical time, I’m grateful I got to experience it knowing now how gamings future has played out
A great and very important video the Xbox leadership should watch and read the comments here. Sad that Phil Spencer and all the people we put our trust in are silent. I mean seriously is Phil still alive?
I was a Xbox fan from the first Xbox on. Had all of them (even have 3 Series X at home for my kids as well) and was even a huge fan of Kinect and their TV features. But last month I built my first gaming PC cause I was just bored and annoyed to death from Xbox and their decisions and games. It's just nothing on Xbox anymore what's worth my time. All mediocre casual boring (yeah Starfield boooooooooring) stuff.
Since I have my PC a whole new world opened up for me. It's sad to see what Xbox has become and scary to think what the future will look like if this "trend" is going on...
Does the PS5 even have games yet?
Halo was the reason a lot of people bought Xbox’s and now that game is in shambles. That plays a huge factor
The thing is Xbox getting carried by halo for almost 2 decades now. Like how can some mega corp put all their eggs in one basket
Halo Infinite is fun as hell now. Ppl just haven’t boot it up recently
Ya I asked for Halo I remember getting the see thru green halo original Xbox and Halo CE bundle and that was all we need because we played only that until Halo 2 came out.
Naw... it was Ninja Gaiden that blew up the console to even have the Halo audience in the first place....
Ninja was the Consoles Hype Man... I was there! It was the first souls like difficulty game...
Then halo and live hit about the same time 05-06ish
@@JonathanTacoman So are dozens of other fps games that are more succesful
"they chase the people that don't care about their products" is so 2010s and 2020s. Seems like every franchise, ever company, every studio is doing just that, ignoring their core audience and just chase ghosts, ghosts who don't buy their products
Not all. There have been some explosive products that are aligned with their customers. Baldur’s Gate 3, Witcher, and others earned huge success because they made great products.
Think it all ties back to the desire for infinite growth forever. Companies cannot simply be satisfied with steady revenue from their core audience. They must always grow, make more money than last quarter. So they believe they HAVE to get more customers, so they're always trying to pull in people who aren't customers, which can make sense...but not when you end up driving away your previous core audience in the process.
@@Lothos88”maximize profits for shareholders”
They are chasing a unicorn that only exists in the head of the marketing department.
@@garythecyclingnerd6219CDPR have gone fully woke and are finished as a studio.
BG3 - there will always be outliers.
Xbox nowadays isn't about Xbox anymore. This is Microsoft Gaming.
Well said my friend
And I'm glad it is. Yeah I had a 360 and played it a ton, but only because so many of those games weren't available on PC. Now they are, and I can play them the way I want. On PC.
Microsoft GAYming 😎
@@parapendejadas4913sounds like gaystation 5 poo..
@@parapendejadas4913 Along with Gaylo Studios.
Xbox 360 thrived on console exclusives. PGR and Forza sold me. Halo 3 sold all of my friends. When those franchises went to shit, I stopped caring.
Same way PS3 was able to regain the initiative in the last years when it released bangers like the last of us & MGS4. Microsoft focussed to much on the kinect and much less in exclusives.
Pretty sure Punishing Gray Raven isnt on Xbox
@@F4Wildcatmetal gear wasn’t an exclusive lol ps3 def had no exclusives compared to 360
Gears of War
Brother, Gears of War😮
I'm almost 34, when I talk to these kids who are just a few years younger than me I feel like I'm talking to someone from a different time period. It's amazing and sad how quickly gaming changed.
It truly is im 33 and when I talk about it u get a blank stare
Its not just gaming. Im 30 and when i was a kid EVERYONE had seen the lotr movies. When rings of power came out i asked some people at work if they had seen the movies and none of them had. For a lot of people rings of power is the first and probobly only view into a world that litteraly defined modern fantasy. 😕
Same, but I'm 44, so in that sense, I feel the same way about you guys. I was in my early 20s during the Halo craziness, so I had the perspective of seeing where gaming had come from from the NES days. Hell, I even worked at Game Stop as a teenager when cartridge systems were all that existed, and I remember the launch of the PS1 and the craziness at the store when that launched. Saw the Dreamcast come and go while I worked there too. Working there during those industry shaping days was something I'm always glad I got to experience.
35 here and I feel like I’m a stranger in my own world these days.
@@failedGraphicsthat’s fucking sad
For me personally, there was a very specific reason why I loved the 360. My parents were divorced and I'd change houses every saturday. Because of this, I had a 360 at my dads house and a second 360 at my moms house. The beauty of the 360 was that you could take off the hard drive and swap them between consoles. So every week, I'd just bring the HD along with me and continued playing.
And ofcourse the massive catalog of great SINGLE PLAYER games. This video touched on GoW and Halo 3, but don't forget the golden COD run of MW1, MW2, Black Ops & Black Ops 2. You had GTA4, TLAD, TBOGT, & GTA5. Ac2 & AC Brotherhood were also fantastic. And don't get me started on Halo Reach, imho the greatest Halo to this day. The 360 era was so great because all of those gaming titles were in their prime too.
TLAD and TBOGT?
@@Honeybadger5408 abbreviation of the gta 4 dlcs "The lost and damned" and " The ballad of gay Tony".
Reach was the best Halo game, don’t worry it may not be the most popular opinion amongst Halo fans, but it really is the most based and truthful.
one thing that always makes me chuckles are the bethesda and activision buy-outs.
if you told young me 10 years ago that bethesda, activison as well as blizzard would become xbox studios, i would tell you that you from now on NEED to own an xbox system.
Now tho. who cares? bethesda can't make a modern RPG to save their lives and activison-blizzard-king is really goddamn disgusting.
i legit couldn't care less about a new elder scrolls and i am to old to still give that much of a shit about COD or be hyped for a new WOW expansion.
I love Oblivion to this day but I know they’re going to make a trash TES6. Thankfully we got Baldur’s Gate 3 to fulfill the high fantasy genre
Someone has to say it: Phil is a horrible CEO. TEN YEARS and nothing to show for it. He says they lost the most important generation, but did you even try to claw it back with stellar must play exclusives? No. Supposedly he's a big gamer and should know a good game from a bad one. So why are you letting all your studios cook hot kaka garbage, Phil? Wrangle them in!
@@HitPoint19 at worst, he's horrible. at best, he's incompetent. he's said a lot of good things, promised a lot of good things that we can reasonably stand behind. but nothing really came of it. not a dang thing.
@@HitPoint19 truth P3 is too interlocked with MSFT. He's running xbox like it's office365 and it just doesn't work that way. Xbox was at its best when they were a separate entity not operating the way business software operates. They care about shareholder value, utilizing temp outsourced labor, aggressive schedules, cost cutting, and heavy monetization. They won't recover
Only thing blizz has going for it is Diablo, growing up on Diablo, it's a game I will always pick up
As Phil Spencer once famously put it "If we lose our way with Halo, we lose our way with Xbox"
343 Industries didn't just kill Halo. 343 Industries ruined Xbox's identity.
Phil Spencer's said a lot of things.
It's time to not care what he and Microsoft say and look to other options that can fill Xbox's hole and give competition to Sony.
Like encouraging Valve to make a Steam console 2.0 for the living room.
Really ramp up SteamOS to make PC games as easy to use as consoles.
I'd rather Xbox be broken away from Microsoft to be a 100% independent company since Microsoft is only using and destroying the Xbox to drive Game Pass subscriptions.
So why invest anymore in the Xbox?
Microsoft's GamePass killed it in order to go Netflix gaming.
And The Coalition took a piss on the ashes.
@@AdmiralBison phil spencer is an empty suit who pretends to be a hardcore gamer by wearing game tshirts under 3000 dollar sport jackets.
@@jstro-hobbytechhe hangs out with Todd howard
Esses gringos só falam besteiras, incrivel
Shame on Xbox and Microsoft. They had it all in their hands and they fumbled, bad. They’re still chasing an audience, though. Modern Audiences.
"Modern audience", the new profane curse. I wonder how long it'll take marketing departments to figure that out.
@@marqod1437 if projects continue to fail to bring revenue, it’ll change rather quickly.
That's 150 people
UA-camrs like you are to game journalists what indie game creators are to AAA devs, you bring us the content that the more established brands seem to close their eyes to over and over again.
He only talks about what's popular so no, he's not any different than the rest.
Good indie games are more rare than good AAA games
The difference is most of us are here instead of places like IGN or PCgamer channel or website. I don't care about people working there anymore since they mostly shill for gaming companies nowadays.
@@RelhioYea he talks about the popular shit, but what he always has something worth while to say and gives very fair criticism.
What? His script is literally ripped from a recent 4 hour video that just last week hit you tube trending. None of what he said here was his own content or inspiration.
22:10
Gears of War - November 7, 2006
Resident Evil 4 - January 11, 2005
Yup a big mistake
Lol this this mistake destroys the whole credibility of this video.
@Pswayze23 not really. It's literally a video about how xbox doesn't care anymore. They are just chasing a dollar. Not saying the mistake wasn't bad. But it doesn't ruin the video at all.
@@Pswayze23 lol no it doesn't
I think he meant RE5 (due to the covering and co-op system), because the developers from the studio of GOW were inspired by RE4.
Listening to you talk about the halo 2 release made me legit cry. Rip to the hood ol days
that E3 2013 moment was the single biggest mistake Xbox made and haven’t recovered since. Sony been fumbling for a minute and Xbox still can’t catch up
Yup, it really showed the difference when in high school pretty much everyone I knew had a 360 and I only knew one person that had a PS3.
By the next generation it was the total opposite.
Honestly Sony is in an equally bad position as Xbox these days. Don't forget all your remakes, concord's 400 million loss, skull and bones, I mean neither console has anything going for it.
Sony's move to California in 2016 has started to bear fruit, again refer to concord, spider ma'am 2, Alan Woke 2. Among other things, Microsoft doesn't have the exclusives anymore, their new Xbox head is a checklist hire who said let's make women more ugly, and less curvy.
We're kinda le bone d.
@@christianedwards9025 equally? Hell no. Sure concord failed but the console exclusives this year are the best games and can be played at ps5 only, helldivers, ff7 rebirth, stellar blade, astrobot, wukong ( i know wukong, helldivers can be played on pc but still a console exclusive) it is a great year for ps5 xbox however, has... Nothing?
@@antagonist7 how many of those did sony go against themselves. Hell divers 2, stellar blade censorship patch. Bro wake up, you think Sony whose now based in the land of liberal crazyiness is even better? Most of your new games are remakes! They had to redo one of the final fantasy games! That lame company set up No Man's Sky to fail, that only succeeded through their own hard work to redeem themselves. They would've preferred if Wukong had more checklists inserted into that game too. Wake up, Sony isn't in a better position, they increased their playsation plus prices recently too, and don't get me started on how often they get hacked, you're a fool if you think that's an enjoyable experience.
Don't get me started on the more recent thing regarding certain games already bought through steam needing a psn account now too, which if you're in a certain country you can't access. The new horizon dawn remake. Yeah that's right, another remake, and if you're in a country without psn oh well too bad. Shakes my head at you in disappointment.
@@christianedwards9025 those things doesnt really affect people who have a ps5 those are pc problems. And hacked?? Ive been with playstation for 20 years and not once have i been hacked
I worked at EB Games (Canadian version of GameStop) for the Halo2 midnight launch. It was absolutely insane the hype that was there. Even us employees working were super stoked about it.
I worked the midnight for Smash Brawl @ EB and that was pretty hype too. Almost a different era those times.
Wtf there's EB Games in Canada? Did it used to be called Electronics Boutique before it was renamed to EB Games too, like here in Australia?
@@Grom8P it really was. The buzz, the hype, the excitement. We had people camping outside our store for HOURS before that Halo 2 launch. I think we ended up working until about 2 or 3 in the morning that night. It was crazy.
@@haydn9315 It was Electronics Boutique yes. But now it’s all rebranded under GameStop.
@@haydn9315 I think MAYBE EB Games stood for "electronics Boutique" but I'm not 100% sure about that. I'm pretty sure all of our EB Games stores are now all Game stops though. It's been a lot of years for me. 🤣
I disagree that they are buying their way _OUT_ of problems, I think they are *buying their way **_INTO_** problems.*
The acquisitions of studios, only to close them, is a desperate move by a company that has spent too much and put out nothing of worth.
Underrated comment 👍.
Yup. This is why I've been moving more towards indie games on Steam and emulation of older titles than AAA titles.
If I hadn't discovered indie games in 2013-14 (Papers, Please and Banished were my entry points), I might not still be a gamer today. I haven't paid anything close to full price for a AAA game since Fallout 4 after applying my "three patches and a Steam sale" rule.
Thinking about the Xbox 360 and the dashboard brings tears to my eyes. The sound it made when you got an achievement made it feel like and accomplishment. Good times
Yeah, it’s a shame the red ring of death really let that console down. After my 360 got red ringed I got a ps3 and never looked back
@@Skegfromcraigslist I remember my red ring moment it appeared then I unplugged it then plugged it back in right away
The Red ring gave me tears as well. Good old days
Yeah the blades were ace!
Now I’m just thinking of the old PS’s start up sounds again. Good stuff. PS5’s is alright
I have a modded OG Xbox and Xbox 360. If I want an Xbox experience, I'll do that. I also have Halo on Steam which is what keeps Halo alive with the modding community, not current Microsoft.
“In their future the console is no longer the endgame, instead they are aiming for a world where subscriptions reign supreme - this shift isn’t about convenience for the customer, it’s about control.”
52:09 for the timestamp.
This is scary stuff. I don’t like where we are headed.
Exactly
I’m all for it! Consoles are a pile of junk. Build a decent pc and join the master race ya penny pinchers. 😂
@@xbotLife blud so up in his ass he can't see that OP is concerned about subscriptions and not the fact of owning a PC.
@@xbotLifeI am not. You can sell yourself out all you like. The rest of us that like our rights won’t do it.
the sub-based model of gamepass is what they like because parents buy it for their kids and then their kids play all the slop made by activists. it's not about making money. microsoft has money. it's about making your kids retarded
If the Tango shutdown and the Halo contract work taught us anything, is that Microsoft still doesn't care about fostering talent, and with how hard making games is, that's the most important thing in this industry, i mean, Nintendo still has a bunch of developers from its early days of game dev.
Also, you know, Microsoft shot themselves on the foot by conditioning their player base on not buying games(Game Pass).
Microsoft wanna be Netflix but it’s becoming Blockbuster
Small correction: Resident Evil 4 was the first to try the over-the-shoulder camera angle, Gears of War couldn't possibly inspired that, seeing how RE4 was released in 2005, while Gears was released in 2006.
resident evil 4 came out before gears of war, did you miss that it was originaly a gamecube game? it's the game everyone tried to immitate, even gears of war.
Monopolizing, buying out the competition and consolidating the industry is just...Microsoft's core M.O., so the real surprise is that Xbox ever served customers in the first place.
@@falguard Best comment
Honestly it looks like early Xbox employees were fighting Microsoft every step of the way so it's more surprising they had any success at all.
this is why you dont support them if you see yourself as a gamer, they speed up shittification more than anyone else
For a while the Xbox division was small enough to operate without much oversight from Microsoft HQ, but those days are over now.
This is why i still own a PS1, N64, Saturn ect. The industry cant destroy hard copies of a better time passed.
You can also just emulate all of that pretty easily, with more options around controller settings, save states, framerates, even fanmade texture packs and such. Plus the games look better just with the basic emulation for anything that was vector based (as opposed to raster).
If you have the systems still around that's fine, but even that's a pain with the physical footprint, connecting to modern TVs, etc. With emulation you can have 4 decade of games in one location, using whatever controllers you want.
Much respect for keeping the original consoles, though
The Saturn was the god console of RPG's, not great at 3D rendering but great for sprites. I remember playing Tomb raider on Saturn and then going to my friends house and he had it on PS1 and I was blown away at how much better the PS1 was for rendering polygons
Yet. I'm certain they'd love to go around and smash physical copies of everything so they have total control.
But those can eventually break or wear out. That’s why emulation is better imo(not to mention save states, optional enhanced visuals to modernize games, and more)
40:38 lol man the halo tv show. I watched the first episode and sent my friend a message like "bro you gotta watch the halo tv show its amazing" i watched episode 2 and 3 and was like "bro nevermind dont bother" what a destruction of a franchise.
Master cheeks was an alright guy! 😂
❌ Less creative campaign team challenges
❌ MTX robbing flexes from hard-earned cosmetics rewarded to skilled campaign or multiplayer players
❌ Too many game editions
❌ Less focus on couch co-op
❌ Games too expensive at launch for kids/parents, so they end up waiting or forgetting and missing the school trend to play together.
Just my personal observations that really crush me to this day.
And all of this all started when people were willing to pay for the Horse Armor DLC in Skyrim and that is all the suits saw for future monetization throughout the industry.
Every warning it will come to this was dismissed as "if you don't like it don't buy". "Monetization" brought us here.
Nobody wants couch co-op anymore. That has nothing to do with why the gaming industry is in shambles.
nobody cares about couch co-op boomer
@@바보Queen Millennial. I wouldn't be so fast on that one, there's enough evidence to the contrary that it's a contributing factor in Halo's downfall, as Legendary Drops mentions it in the video and other long-term fans agree. Why wouldn't you want it?
Halo 3 was $60 when it released in 2007. Everyone bought it. Because $60 games were the norm. Now free to play games are the norm and because of that we have shitty games with microtransactions
Interesting video to me because I am a "Sony kid" that only owned Playstation systems since the PS1 era. My interests in videogames are solo player experiences, and heavily story focused games like RPGs, so I never actually played Halo nor Gears (I do own the Masterchief collection on PC now but don't have time to play it for now).
So I am not super aware of it is for Xbox fans these days compares to how it was back then.
Yeah, it was a quite informative video. Thanks.
Don Mattrick was more a businessman, not an innovator that Xbox was being so far and still needed.
He is still the face of the failure Xbox One is for me.
the failure of all of xbox
@@The.BrightLord True, he killed all the momentum the 360 had built up. Xbox has never fully recovered since then and it seems like they wont.
@@PatMatNI disagree. Xbox momentum stalled after the turn of the decade. Don Mattrick and those who supported his decisions just helped in putting 2 nails into the Xbox coffin when there was only 1 nail before with the PS3 coming back from the dead to outsell the 360 despite a 3-4 year headstart.
Xbox fans like to pretend 2014 was the turning point. The bleeding out started well before that. Not a hindsight remark now. Anyone who supported Xbox in 2014 categorically needs their heads checked. Maybe if they didn't, MS would have done more for this generation ultimately.
Correction: The decision to make Redfall was not made by Xbox. It was made by Zenimax when they were in the process of acquisition to pump up the value of the company. Arkane developers were hoping that Microsoft would cancel the project but Phil Spencer did what he thought was permitting studio autonomy and kept all projects on course after acquisition.
hahahahahaha
I’ve lost count of the factual errors in this video at this point.
Yeah, that's where I stopped watching. If we start making up stuff...
To add to the mess, Resident evil 4 came out a few years before Gears of War....
A bloody classic everyone knows about and you still fucked up the timeline of influences
@@LoliconSamalik Funny thing about that: He could have dragged Xbox for their own incompetence losing them Resident Evil 4. Back in the OG Xbox days, Xbox had an opportunity to snatch a RE4 exclusivity deal. Mikami's team were having frustrations developing for the PS2 so he was going around looking for fresh lawns. The Xbox guys arranged a meeting with Mikami to negotiate, but Mikami sat through the meeting confused about what "philosophy" the Xbox's translator is pitching him. Negotiation broke down, Mikami bowed and left the meeting disappointed and Xbox lost the RE4 exclusivity deal to Nintendo.
I will add this...the PS3 was higher in cost because of its Blu ray drive, which was a new technology and a sony product they really wanted to push. I remember buying mine as a more affordable blu ray player that played video games. Standalone blu ray players at the time were $500 - $1000. If the Playstation people said people need to work more to afford it, then that's incorrect. And the whole Bungie acquisition delaying Halo's release on the PC a year was really annoying. I was so pumped for that on the PC.
And because it literally included a PS2 inside for full backwards compatibility. The fact that the PS3 was only 599 was a miracle.
I had a Wii, 360 and PS3 at the time. In addition to the utility of the Blu Ray drive, the PS3 got the most use due to use its varied library and exclusives. I will say this though, the 360 is great if you like STGs. This was the last and best console generation.
There were a lot of combining factors that resultet in the PS3 being so expensive, it wasn't just the drive.
Sony got comfortable after the PS2 and figured players would choose Sony regardless.
@@todesziege Well...PS2 is still the most sold console. They hit a home run with that one.
@@Keil2590 The PS1, too. Which is why they got a bit too comfortable with the PS3.
An hour long video by LD? This is gonna be so good.
Inb4 3hr Asmon vid
Waiting for the video where he explained that five second production method
The MOST infuriating thing that the Xbox One did was the no backwards compatibility with the 360, an absolute moronic idea.
Playstation did the same thing and thought they could get away with it too. Sony has given Xbox dozens of opportunities to take over but after the failure of the Xbox One their is NOTHING that can build that trust back even tho the Series X and Xbox overall is 1000x better. You can slide hundreds of xbox 360 games into that disc drive RIGHT NOW and play them with zero issues, same with even the OG Xbox. Sony only has PS4. If you wanna play PS3, PS2 or PS1 games you own on a console YOU bought. You have to repurchase them on the store if they even have your game at all on the store. Sony is a pathetic disgrace of a console company that gets carried off the backs of game studios they don't even give the respect for. Hence why Square Enix and even Atlus (people who created Persona) are no longer gonna be PlayStation Exclusive.
I wonder what their though process behind this was. I imagine it going something like: "Don't let them play the old games, they bought from us. That will make them more likely buy our new console." And nobody said "no" to that.
@@DieKupfnerbergerSteigerI've always thought, maybe incorrectly, that backwards compatibility is really only super important to a small, loud minority. When most people I've known have bought a new system, pick one, they've bought it to play the new, hopefully more impressive games that are being released for the new console. At least among the people I know backwards compatibility has never been a deal breaker, and even when they had a console with it they never used that function.
No one cares about backwards compatibility bro
@@SpeedroidTerrortop I do 😔
As an european it's always interresting to hear people share their memories of Xbox 360, since here ps3 outsold it by twice the ammount. (except for UK) Heck, in my circle of friends only one has the console.
Same thing in my friends group in Canada. We all owned PlayStations. I knew 1 person with an Xbox lol
Its nice to here a different perspective
When I was a child/teen, I didn't even know Playstation had competition. The only non-Playstation consoles I knew about were the Gameboy and DS.
Then with the internet I finally heard of the 360 but didn't care.
So the American perspective is always interesting for me because all 3 consoles were always in good competition while in Europe, outside of a few Nintendo successes like the Wii or Gameboy, it was basically a Playstation fortress.
The 360 was definitely more popular than the PS3 in Finland. But people mostly played on PC.
I still remember getting an Xbox 360 with Halo 3 for Christmas and I literally cried lol. Made some really good life long friends and memories through that game.
did u get t-bagged lol
That was an era or two ago
Physical gaming is important too. Same thing, they aren’t pushing digital for your convenience. It’s for complete control. Even if you don’t prefer physical games we need to at least support it as an available option. We should never support less buyer options and ownership.
I hear you, and I would love physical options, but discs can’t even hold the size of massive triple A games anymore so what form of media are they going to sell them on at a reasonable price? Genuine question.
A dual-layer blu-ray holds 50gb of data. Most games are still not 50gb, mostly unoptimized AAA titles are above that, plus you can add a second disc to expand that to 100gb. We all remember double, triple, even quadruple CD disc games from the PS1 era. So we’re not out of room for physical media just yet.
Plus, funny enough, we could be going back to a cartridge style layout ala microsd cards that can expand up to 8 TB, which Nintendo has been moving over to with their cartridge format.
@@Neonagi a next gen cartridge based console would be so amazing
@@Neonagi Even a lot of indie games are above 50gb. Not to mention, I don't want to buy a disc filled with with 50gb of worthless data because all the updates since its printing are 50gb in size.
@@poika22 A lot? I did a quick survey of about 200 games and found 3, so 1.5%. And they were all in the 60Gb range.
Is our generation gonna be the old grumpy ones that complain about how good stuff used to be while we see the world go to shit, and still see the younger generation enjoy the shit and blame us for being grumpy and nostalgic about old stuff, while we think that the younger gen don't even know what they're missing, because this shit is what they have grown up in. It's their standard.
Like night follows day isn't it? Father time is undefeated. Those rubbishing our opinions majorly or entirely now will grow to reminisce on these times even..
Maybe I'm just out of touch and that's fine if so, but when I look around I'm not seeing a whole lot of the "younger generation" enjoying anything. They are one of the most depressed, and medicated generations to date.
It's a little of both. Nostalgia plays a part but I think there's a level of objectivity that exists as well. When I showed a video of Halo 2's launch to my nephews (14 and 17), they said they were kinda jealous that these things don't exist anymore. They've also recently started to play older games and the oldest is starting to understand why games were "better" at that time. Even he's getting annoyed by MTX's and uncreative games now.
@@ninjinmugenyeh the younger generation is now apathetic to most shit. We know we’re f&@ked by the economy, nothing is just fun it’s all dei or some sort of message being shoved down our throats, we can’t say what we want or have an opinion, friendship is dying, dating is cooked, getting a job is almost impossible bc you need like 10 years of work experience even if it’s your first minimum wage job, and we’re probably gonna have WWIII. So most of gen z is just living in their own little worlds in their heads acting like they have mental illnesses for clout and not giving a f about anything anymore bc we know we’re doomed anyway so why care. It’s getter very nihilistic
Literally this lol... Just feeding of negativity everywhere for this generation.
It really is up to us gamers to turn this around. I firmly believe we are in the beginning of another gaming crash and it's severity and length will be determined by us, not corporations. Do your research and avoid devs/studios that are not gamer focused. This can mean a number of things to each person individually, but do not spend your money blindly anymore.
The only way to stop this gaming crash, it for devs to make the games that gamers want.
Stop catering to this mythical modern audience, that either doesnt exist, doesnt play games or exists in such small numbers, they arent enough to make profit from!
If devs continue on that track, then let gaming crash and crash hard!!
Took the words out my mouth 🔥
@@prezzeruk4054 The only way devs will go back to making the games we want is to see their "modern" focused movement fail. As nearly everyone has said over and over again recently, gamers have no aversion to diversity in games when it is organic. It is when quotas and checkboxes are on a whiteboard of development goals that make games insufferable. The trend of voting with our wallets has started but it needs to grow from a ripple to a tidal wave where it ends in the closure of studios on a consistant basis. I wish no ill will towards those in the industry just trying to make a living and great games, but it is going to take a lot of effort to course correct this ship.
i agree with you. my only counter would be that we are actually in one right now, and that a crash wouldnt look like it did back in the day due to the massive growth of the industry over the past decades. id present that Ubisofts state, Sony's recent fumbles, Nintendo's notable greed and anti consumer actions, and Microsofts incredible decline show we are well into the crash already. Indie games will keep the industry "afloat" so to speak and only the corpos will really feel the hurt.
@@paradigmcoterie2606 I agree with you also. When I speak of a crash I am mainly speaking of AAA and in some cases AA game studios games not selling, which leads to lay offs, which leads to less games on the market etc etc. Absolutely there are a ton of indie devs out there that will continue to thrive and likely moreso as this continues. But we all want great AAA titles to play to go with the great indie games. So this crash must play out so we can see a return to gamer focused studios instead of the current socially driven content.
After 20-20-20 min videos - now a full hour Cinema video
now wait until the asmongold react video to go 3 hours
34:36 Gamepass didn't launch during the 360 era, it was Xbox One era. Gamepass launched in 2017, 4 entire years after the launch of Xbox One in 2013, WELL after the 360 era was over.
Midnight releases were a truly magical time, back when games were innovative, bold, and creative. Wish companies would understand that’s what we want
They do understand, they just don't care. It's all about stock price, shareholders, and micro transactions.
I'm over 50 so I've seen 8 bit (Vic 20, BBC Micro, Sinclair Spectrum C64), 16 bit (Amiga, Atari ST, PC (dos)), 32bit (Archimedes, PC (windows)), Consoles (Xbox, Player Station) - tapes > CDs > DVDs > BDs (briefly) > Steam, etc. It's been a wild, interesting ride. One thing which has become a real hinderance in the last 10 years which has caused our current woes is over bearing corporatism. It's what is killing almost everything in entertainment (particularly AAA games and Hollywood) and has come about, I think, by too much investment money sloshing around at the top end of society due to the (up until recently) really low 0.5% interest rates (it's also sucked the money out of the rest of society).
Love this video man! Was always a huge fan of Sony and Nintendo growing up, but once Xbox released and 360 released, I had changed sides.
Kinect ruined my love for Xbox because of all of the reasons you explained. But I’ll never forget those times and how great it was.
Honestly, gaming hasn’t been the same since the PS4 era, but I’m invested in it forever and have been for almost 35 years.
We have to be smart on who we support now.
"You will own nothing and be happy"
WEF
That's why if I play a game on Gamepass, I download a cracked version so that I own it. Actually, I do that with physical copies of games I buy as well to bypass any DRM or online checks that could lead to the game being "taken away" from me at some arbitrary point. My cracked game catalog is now over 200 games deep and growing every day, and I'll own those games forever.
@@1_underthesundumb question but if you put it all on a 2 terabyte m.2 ssd will you just be able to put it in a new pc build without any issues ?
@@salmark9080 Yes, you can
@@salmark9080 yup
You will play mediocre slops on Gamepass and be happy
- Microsoft
22:02 correction RE 4 already exist before GoW
Yup and it was ported to both the XBox and PS2 after the 2 year Gamecube exclusive!
Was just about to comment this lol^
@@joncarter3761 Nope. After the two years it only came to the PS2. The original Xbox didn't get a port. It eventually came to the 360, but that was in 2011.
@@AmartharDrakestoneWrong, it came on the PS2 9 months after the GameCube version came out. If you’re going to factcheck someone, at least make sure your facts are correct too lmao.
I had to watch this video in segments like through work between jobs and then finished it after getting home and getting cleaned up and having dinner and it held my attention so much that I didnt even think until like 10 minutes until the end to be like dude just how long is this damn video and scrolled over it to see the duration and was like, holy shit. You can definitely see the love in the craft, keep up the good work, but try to not burn yourself out sir. Great vid as always.
I appreciate this video man, great job. I'm much older today, fully grey beard gamer missing the old days of gaming. One thing that sticks out for me is remembering being so blown away by gaming and thinking to myself imagine what gaming will be when I'm much older. It can only get better, right.... No, all I'm left with is disappointment today and feeling nostalgic about the late 90's and early 2000's of gaming. Man, what the hell happened. Greed and politics destroying my beloved hobby...😢
It sucks to see Xbox in this situation. I owned the original and the 360(also, a PS2, PS3 and Gamecube) and the 360 was a fantastic console. The original blade menu is such a sleek, minimalist design. And the games were fun. Especially when you had titles, like Halo 3, Fable, COD Modern Warfare etc.
Some of my most fond gaming memories occurred in those very early Xbox live lobbies. I'm talking 2002-2003ish. I could not get enough PGR2. Miss that series so much. Then a few years later, the X360 was just as influential. I was in the military, and everyone was on live at that time. hell of a video sir.
Halo, Oblivion, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect. These gamers were my childhood on the xbox. What is getting released these days? Its sad to see a titan fall.
OVERWATCH SKIIIIINNS LETS GOOOO1!1!!!1!
-some kid, probably.
Only one first party game there. So really the xbox 360 only had 3rd party console exclusives to make it worth considering.
Halo was the only true exclusive on that console besides gears. I was on Xbox until the one then swapped to pc.
I have no idea how they never really made any franchis3s
For me, they screwed me over HARD.
I cancelled my Live subscription on my console, only to find out I was still being charged, so I contacted Support and cancelled again... Only to find out I WAS STILL BEING CHARGED... Oh, and the card they were charging was cancelled but it was still charging the main account that the card had originally been connected to, still not sure how it was bypassing that...
The third and final time I managed to finally cancel my subscription and at the same time I completely swore off Xbox because they had literally been robbing me, oh yeah I didn't mention that, of course they didn't actually refund the money despite admitting it was their f**k ups that caused it... F**k Xbox.
Same thing happened to me… at the end I just asked my bank to refund me and they did… I got lucky but its fucked up how if I put my debit card it automatically connects to my whole bank account… so even if I changed the card they will still charge me
Protect this man. He’s speaking for all gamers
Why have access to hundreds of games when I could play one game that is more fun than hundreds of other games combined?
Gears absolutely was inspired BY RE4, not the other way around. Re4 popularized the over the shoulder perspective...this is well known. Might wanna fix that
Facts , I hate ho many peopl pretend they were there but tney get simple stuff like this wrong.
not true
Before spouting uneducated nonsense, maybe try GOOGLE the release dates. You’re an idiot.
Absolutely not true. How many games of that era copied GOW? Silly, guy.
@@intellectic9155
Gears of War - November 7, 2006
Resident Evil 4 - January 11, 2005
As a dedicated Xbox player for over 15 years, I finally put it to rest and got rid of all Xbox consoles because gaming has just turned into something I want no part of. It’s no longer enjoyable.
My decision to purchase an Xbox was always the idea that the Xbox was a alternative to purchasing a PC, for those that did not want all of the additional responsibilities of purchasing a PC. Microsoft has fumbled the bag and ball in the gaming sphere, when they could have sought out PC game developers to put their early access and betas on their platform, giving them a competitive edge over Sony. Instead we witnessed mass purchases of properties and companies, with very little to show for it and here we are now.
very true, I always had big hopes for the Xbox Preview (early access) program but the stuff there is just nothing at all. I was even Xbox insider since beginning of time but even there nothing is going on anymore. Just asking me if I like pizza...
Reminder in regard to zenimax sony was making deals to make starfield an exclusive to play station when microsoft bought zenimaz (at the time starfield hype was big)
Dead by Xbots’s toxic positivity.
This is probably relevant to the conversion, and I don't want this to come of as an attack, but I'm not sure you've noticed; when you say at 13:30 "Halo 2 was the moment that gaming went mainstream" you are being ludicrously US-centric. Microsoft sold 24M consoles worldwide, which isn't bad for a first try, but you talk about Halo 2 being the moment gaming goes mainstream while the PS2 sold 150M, more than 6 times the volume of consoles! Like, yes Halo was HUGE, even in Europe. But it was not that much of a shift in gaming history. GTA Vice City is more relevant contender for that "going mainstream" on the PS2. The DS, the Wii...that's going mainstream. Halo 2 sold 8 millions worldwide, which is big for the time. And I don't want to minimize how much Xbox Live on that particular game shifted Sony's vision of the online features for the next console...but "gaming goes mainstream" heeeeeee idk.
There isn't a Xbox in the top 5 best selling consoles of all time: it's just Sony or Nintendo. This is not to say that they are bad machines. I didn't particularly care for the first Xbox when it released (except for Splinter Cell that just blew my mind and was a lesser version when it released on PS2) but the Xbox 360 was and still is one of my favorite consoles ever and brought such a wealth of great ideas from the UI, better online features, achievements, a hand to help bring indies to consoles with the XNA and the avenue to sell their games without the hurdle of boxed copies, thanks to the marketplace. Also, I'm not saying that in order to survive Xbox requires to be the top dog.
What I am saying is that either Xbox fans or Microsoft have created themselves a little fantasy where the Xbox were the most influential machines and all...and it wasn't outside of the US. Which leaves Europe and Japan (and nowadays you can add West and East Asia, South America and parts of Africa) as big territories where Microsoft never got brand loyalty. Dunno how it's going now, but in Europe, it's either PlayStation or PC. And a Nintendo on the side or for the kids. I'm not sure how well Xbox is doing out here...
It feels like a huge blind spot.
Foreal. We need true American gaming back! My mother bless her soul took me to the midnight release of halo 2 on a school night. I ordered the special edition with the metal tin case. Everyone in line at EB games was excited, people ordered pizza while waiting. I will never forget the moment and I realized looking back how much my mother loved me and just wanted me to be happy. My greatest gaming moments came with me going with my mom to the store to pick up a GameCube or when Pokemon base set came out I went to the card store and opened my pack while she was driving and pulled secret charizard! This video took me back!
“American gaming”…. Yeah… newsflash: America is NOT the gaming Capital of the World. Maybe Thats Why Xbox is failing. Unable to Connect with an international audience. In Europe and Asia - a huge gaming market many times bigger than America, Xbox doesnt have any foothold-
Lol I still remember my dad taking me to toys r us to get Pokémon red wayyyyy back. Also him taking me to blockbuster on Fridays after school to rent a game. Good times
I loved reading this!!!
America has pushed out a ton of DEI and other weird ideologies, you could say they did more harm to entertainment including gaming these days.
”American gaming”? Lmfao 🤡
"Treat Others As THEY Want To Be Treated"..... Thats what happened!
💯%!!! PERIOD!!!
what people dont realise is xbox only ever was on top during the 360 era for a little while. after sonys failure of a launch their sales figures caught up to the 360
Cod is Microsofts new "golden goose".
Except it was spray painted gold, and now its peeling 😅
When a console company says it'll run 4k @120fps and the game devs cap games at 30 fps that's a serious issue in my book. That is like buying a Challenger Hellcat and the dealer refuses to give you the red key. Where TF is my performance I was promised!!!??? That's why I finally canceled my game pass and play on PC.
They cap it because the game was made for the Series S and they forgot to unlock it for the Series X.
I rarely comment on videos, but I want to let you know that you did a phenomenal job on this one. So much heart and effort have been put into this and it shows. Despite being one hour long, it went by a flash. I'm happy to see with this video that I'm not the only one looking back at those halcyon days where gaming was all about having fun and creating memories. I've been following you for a couple months now and this channel is a hidden gem and has been refreshing. Stay cool, stay righteous, stay safe and I'll see you in the next one.
I also got Xbox One for its multimedia aspect, but I feel Microsoft underestimated the rise of smart tvs. They effectively made the multimedia aspect of Xbox, the most marketed aspect of that console, redundant. People didn't need to buy the console, it came standard with most new tvs. That plus a lack of interesting games made the Xbox One an anchor for them. Their bluray player is also crap when playing dvds; audio runs out of sync on my tv. They've never bothered to fix it and instead blame it on my television. A television that has no issues when I use that exact same tv and dvd in a PS4.
People keep insisting on this nonsense that Phil Spencer saved the brand. No, Phil made the Xbox a toothless shark, he spent all these years making bad decisions, he took the firepower out of the Xbox and made it an unnecessary product, I repeat Phil spent all these years trying to convince the world that consoles were unnecessary, and all he managed to do was convince the world that his console was unnecessary! Nothing complicated, fire the guy, fire his minions.
Smoke and mirrors sums up Phil Spencer.
It's wild how he still has Stans to this day.
one of the worst things about this generation is just the existence of the Series S. Rumor has it that split screen on DB Sparking Zero is limited to the dullest level entirely due to Series S compatibility. Not the first time a game has been crippled or just hasn't come out on XBox thanks to the Series S limitations.
Microsoft lost their way with Halo. That's what happened to XBox
Not just Halo but every franchise under them
ever since they tried to push the xbox one as a "tv" box its gone downhill since then
They dropped every franchise they had like Halo Fable GoW so they can buy "new" ones from BGS and Activision Blizzard to replace them.
Just with gaming in general
@@Raeaskuo And now they will probably ruin CoD, Fallout and all the others as well... When they acquired them I still had hope they will improve these games but watching what they have done recently made me lose all my hope in that.
The whole DRM thing is so hilarious, did you know Sony had the same idea and shifted it on the spot when they witnessed the audience reaction to it on the Xbox One presentation as well as adjusting their price
Not on the spot, they first has similar ideas because EA was pressuring them but then they decided that it was a dumb idea and changed it up. Their price was always gonna be 400, microsoft made it 500 because of kinect.
Pretty sure they had a deal with xbox to bot go for it but backstabber xbox after they anounced it
@@Someone-lg6dino they didn’t, Sony was always aware that their major games sells physically especially in their home country of Japan. Locking in always online and trying to kill the second hand physical marketplace was always anti consumer and Sony knew this.
The difference between the 2 companies is that if it was the other way round you really think Microsoft would change anything
Your take on the gaming industry is so on point. Keep on the good work/fight!
Remember when having cable with over 500 channels? But nothing to watch? Streaming services have ALL these shows but still nothing to watch. Gamepass has all these games but still nothing to play.
For me at least. Their original IP’s are in shambles. Even some making a come back but I am still very weary of it. Xbox just doesn’t have any good exclusives anymore. Everything is on PC now. I sold my xbox. Maybe in the next few years, I will consider buying one again. If they ever will come out with one.
I think if we want to get influential products back, it will take a complete reshuffle and a fresh start. Gamers need to become developers, not people who are not in the industry or who have poor skills. It is understandable that gamers don't buy. These big companies have lost their credibility and have squeezed the value out of the IP. And they ignore the developers who really work hard.
It all started with PlayStations “how to share games on PS4 video”
There was a lot of things building up to that moment, but that super short clip really did feel like the gut punch that forced their downfall. Me not knowing all the behind the scenes business decisions as a teenager, it absolutely felt like the moment that started it all.
It started with Don Matrick. Sony just took advantage of the giant fumble that was the Xbox One and their obsession with “TV”.
@@MisfitToy and it was hilarious. I was laughing.
@@Zlagie I didn’t know anything about the whole situation until I saw that clip in the feed on UA-cam back in the day. Didn’t follow gaming news at all at the time because I was 13-14 years old.
@Duckman8213 I was around 15 at the time. The first time I remember hearing bad news about Xbox was articles leaking info regarding the new system, known then only as the code word Durango. News leaked about the system not allowing used games, and mandating login once every 24 hours. The leak was so bizzare that it seemed like a joke! I was on the PS3 side of the console war, and I knew something was really off when even Xbox players were super upset about Durango. It felt bad even then. When the reveal of the Xbone happened, the whole show felt boring as sin and like they already lost. When that PS4 reveal happened with the used games ad, it was like the shot heard round the world. The console war was so toxic back then, it floored me to see Xbox diehards announce their decision to get a PS4. I knew PS4 was gonna sail smoothly for the rest of its generation.
I was a freshman in college when Halo 2 dropped. The hype was legendary. RIP many an academic career.
Sony's jab at xobx about game sharing was hilarious
End end section is downright prophetic, and that's something that I don't want but I think it'll end up there
This was a great eulogy to Xbox
"we have a product for people who don't want to always have online conectivity it's called Xbox 360"
I will never forget that
my first ever "if you dont like it don't buy it"
ironically by the end of that year i was playing TF2
That dial up rant really hit the feels
I'm not a huge gamer - at least not anymore. Was more of a PC gamer than Xbox but even I can remember just how big Halo 2 and the Xbox was. Thanks for the video - really took me back through my childhood playing these games at friends' houses and whatnot.
Also just want to say that I really appreciate these video essays. It's a really cool peek behind the curtains for me, as I don't know much of the corporate history behind the games and consoles, and it's clear how deeply passionate you are about the subject matter. The whole video is well done - love the b reel of the various games as you discuss them - and I think your delivery makes it really engaging. Cheers!
Halo leaving behind split-screen co-op multiplayer is what made me stop caring about the Xbox. Why I need a console if I cant play with my friends on the same couch?
It's why I'm currently playing on the ps4 (don't have a ps5) and playing all the newer EDF games because they have lots of content, no microtransactions outside of pre-order deluxe edition, and very long campaign all doable in split screen.
57:32 it was worth it
I dont get why people think Xbox is ushering in the death of gaming. The only thing they're going to cause is their own death - both Sony and Nintendo have been been beating the brakes off of them for multiple generations now.... Oh but the xbox boogeyman is gonna take over gaming any day now? Not sure how that works
i disagree PlayStation is also getting worse with fewer actually good games coming out falling in line with the game pass with PlayStation plus 3 tiers of it too and a lot of people just want to play something and have that iconic feel when playing a video games like with Helldivers 2 for example PlayStation doesn't care about the players they just want the money from there shares Xbox and PlayStation are doing the same thing while Nintendo is falling off trying to keep up and doing the same thing with the subscription to just play a game and they wont drop prices now these are consoles and that's what people are talking about i think its gonna go back to PC gaming the way things are going because is more free no monopoly can control them there PlayStation is putting games on steam because they know thats going to be the new gaming industry and all these indie games making it because theyre doing what big game companies cant... care for the people and the developers
As much as I loved the PlayStation 2 and a little bit towards GameCube during that era, there was something so awesome and special about the original Xbox - the custom soundtracks you could make on a console, the Xbox Live experience, and obviously the games; Fable, CS, Halo, Brute Force, Rainbow Six: Black Arrow, PGR, MechAssault, Panzer Dragoon Orta, and the list just goes on. I still go back and play these games to this day and while I do own a Series X (mainly for BC), I just don’t really care about the current mindset of Xbox as I primarily game on PC and Switch. Nothing grabs me anymore when something releases on their console and Game Pass hasn’t won me over.
Totally same feeling. I don't PC but my Switch is all I play. I have zero interest in the new systems. It's the first time I've ever not cared to own current gen.
It's like they do not care about those who are not woke.
I just miss that era because developers and their games ALWAYS looked to shock and impress us. Now, they seem to do everything possible NOT to do those things as they feel doing so is antithetical to making a game appeal to the masses. "Soft modern" is more than just inserting ideologies into games, it's about softening all the edges of a game to make it as milquetoast as humanly possible.
Oh man, Brute Force ha. Throwback. I think I actually finished that game but forgot it existed.
@1_underthesun agreed. I think another big factor is that with the rise of the industry, alot of the creativity is being sidelined to focus on big profit.
Can't take creative risks if you're going to shoot for mass market appeal.
Playing OG Halo at a friend's house got me to buy an xbox the next day and was a fan ever since. The 360 days were peak. It's a damn shame how 343 and MS have fumbled Halo time after time since Bungie left though.
Resident Evil 4 came out a year before Gears of War. Just sayin' lol. Great video though.
Great vid!
One error you mentioned Gears of War in 2006 “over the shoulder” view inspired look a likes one including Resident Evil 4
RE4 came out before Gears on GameCube early 2005
Don mattrick Jim Ryan and Herman Hulsk will all go down in history as being just terrible heads of their platforms
Sony love Jim. Huge increase in market share to the point MS may exit the console business.
@@davidforman6191 and who knows how much money was wasted on the live service gamble he took with his 1st party studios because all a game needs to be is a live service and the money just comes rolling in
Don't forget Phil he's one of us Spencer
The current console generation really made me stick to PC. I had plans to buy an XSX and a PS5 but got discouraged by how small the library of first party exclusive games they have.. and I say this as I stare at my cabinet full off 360 and PS3 games. It's really disappointing considering how much they brag about the power and technology behind the current gen consoles and yet they don't have enough games to flex
Honestly, there are games, you just have to go look for them now more. Gaming has gotten to the same size as movies or music, and most people don't just listen to the top 10 on the radio. They go out and find bands they like and will make their own playlists. But also, it's bc such a large amount of players are still on last gen. This gen has had a WAY longer tie over than ever before. All the last gen consoles should have been left behind once the chip shortages were cleared up. Yea, it's losing money but its also holding games back and leading to the "this gen has no games" thought that a lot of people wrongfully have.
@@Layla-p2h And that's happening faster and faster. Soon, PC versions will launch day 1 along with its console version.
I moved from pc to ps5 and its sooo easy and carefree, plus couch Coop gaming, and Big tv! Best shift i ever made. Soooo many games i need to get through!
@@Syldarin I'm happy for you. PC gaming can be a pain in the ass to set up sometimes, and if you just don't wanna deal with that nonsense, a console is most likely gonna give you an easier life. But that's pretty rare nowadays. I most of the time hear it the other way around, started on console and now switched over to PC.
Same. I started PC gaming last year and never looked back.
Microsoft had lost before the end of the 7th Gen. Yeah, the ps360 days. Xbox was more worried about being a one-stop shop for everything but videogames. Meanwhile sony had not only closed the gap, but actually overtook xbox by the time the 8th had started. Ms corrected the whole red-ring fiasco, but for some gamers, myself included, had moved on from the 360. I owned 3 360's that all red ringed. I bought a ps3 when the slim came out and haven't looked back. Imo, this is what killed the momentum. You made it sound like it was a celebration getting you 360 replaced however many times you got the red ring, but it made me and my friends drop 360 and move on.
The red ring literally caused me to buy a PS3 slim. 😂😂
The PS3 was a great console in its own right honestly.
To be fair, early PS3s had a far worse issue with the "Yellow Light of Death." Most 360s just require new thermal paste.
@@redslate The 360 red ring problem was far more widespread.
23:27 "It genuinely felt like gaming could never get better"
And then it never did. I chuckled a bit, but it's really sad. Almost 20 years and the late 90s to mid 2000s remain the golden age for
- singleplayer games
- shooters of any kind
- console multiplayer
- social features in multiplayer games
and so many other things. Gaming had already peaked and Halo 3 was a swan song, a sun set, misunderstood by contemporaries as the promise of what was yet to come. Nothing came. Halo 3 was the last good Halo game and the last game worth buying a console for.
Microsoft doing Microsoft things happened
They are doing the same thing with Windows
@@phoenixshell3772have been for decades
@@phoenixshell3772 anyone remember some program called "Skype" that used to be the go-to videochat software? They gradually shifted it to trying to have instagram like filters before letting it totally bloat and stagnate into Microsoft Teams. Could've had the Zoom market, but no.
The 360 era was so unique. Video games were synonymous with xbox at the time. People just asked "what's your gamertag?" if they heard you mention games. It was unusual to have a PS3 or gaming PC without also having a 360. By 2010 there were so many different models and used consoles out there, basically anyone could get their hands on one
Honestly having to pay monthly just to play online the games you own, and then to see the games you play have tons of microtransactions is cancer. I haven't touched my consoles since I've had my pc. I can buy a game and play it and mod it how I want.
Not just this mate. But the amount of subscriptions for so many things nowadays is challenging to manage for the vast majority of us.
As a PS guy, I never considered Xbox for halo. I can't name one exclusive game I would switch console for.
Not saying sony does it perfectly, but for me to adjust to a new controller and such, it has to be a banger catalog.
Love the long form. Phenomenal video! I agree it’s so sad to see how far Xbox has fallen. :(
RIP Halo. Never forgotten!
The May 2013 presentation happened.
They failed to manage their studios and failed to manage the whole Xbox division while the competition put out banger after banger and led the whole industry for game quality.
Great video! I love these long form docu-opinion pieces on gaming. One thing that was huge for XBOX early, that you kinda talked about at 5:44 - the birth of Xbox Media Player (which became Xbox Media Center or XBMC). This dashboard GUI, trimming all the fat from the base Windows UI, really moved the needle in seamlessly providing content to the end user in a casual friendly way to operate; even my 60 year dad at the time could navigate it to play music and movies. It was so popular, Sony basically made their own starting with the PSP and this exists to the PS5 today. It was ported to a linux port, "KODI", that is now used in Amazon Fire Sticks and Roku to this day (although maybe content companies hated KODI because it also enabled piracy).
Of course, in the advent of streaming and companies trying their best to funnel consumers to consume (as supposed to playing local files because GIVE ME MONEY), these dashboards are now littered with ads and marketing bullshit. Hell, the XBOX app on PC is awful; goes to show how far, and low, we've come on all fronts from companies claiming to want to provide a "service".
I just realized how much this video reminds me of a quote from the Aeldari in WH40k: "Since the time of The Fall, our race has been haunted, by what we, in our reckless pursuit of hedonistic indulgence, gave birth to (greed and gamepass). Though our dreams once overturned worlds (Halo) and quenched suns (Playstation), we are now but fitful shadows clinging to the edge of existence. All the stars in the sky cannot blot out the hateful glare of the Red Moon's eye (gamers). The birthing place of the Great Enemy (PR) pulses with all the malice of a daemon that is dreaming, and it casts a shadow over all we have ever done, and all we ever shall."
I was part of the XR HoloLens org layoffs during the 343 layoffs and cant agree more... its turned into a soulless company. Feel like this take is pretty much how the tech industry is today in not putting the customer first
It's actually crazy to think a time like that even existed when you look at the current gaming generation. There seems to be a bigger focus on money and exclusivities and microtransactions, over the days of exciting multiplayer games, huge lan parties and couch coop. I hope it comes back one day, but I'm not holding my breath.
Impeccable video as always!