Let's talk about Xbox
In the late months of the year 2001, the Xbox entered the gaming scene.
At the time the world scoffed - the market was already positively saturated by the three big companies that had dominated the console gaming scene (and indeed, gaming in general) for years.
In case of Sony, the Playstation which had just launched the almighty PS2 a year earlier.
In case of the two older behemoths, Nintendo had just launched the Gamecube less than two months before and had a slew of exclusive franchises in their arsenal, while Sega was still riding out the slow death of the Dreamcast and was getting ready to officially withdraw from the console wars.
But, it turns out, *reads from tattered ancient prophecy scroll* there must always be 3, to balance one another.
First, it was Atari, Nintendo and Sega.
Then, it was Nintendo, Sega and Sony.
But who would join that trio now that Sega was gone? Surely it wouldn't be Microsoft? They didn't have the pedigree for it.
Let's not mince words, despite the PC having the superior theoretical hardware (especially once 3D acceleration cards in the form of 3DFX's Voodoo and (then newcomer) Nvidia's Riva TNT made their debut), gaming on PC had been an afterthought for all but the most platform-devoted game developers.
Not to mention that to game on a PC you needed plenty of space (CRT monitors were still the dominant type at the time) as well as a beefy Windows PC with several peripherals like a decent graphics card, a 3D Acceleration card, a sound card, a chunky keyboard, a crappy trackball mouse (optical mice were just starting to become a thing), speakers and whatever other peripherals you wanted per game: headphones, crappy gamepads, joysticks; not to mention games would sometimes limit what you could play them on (such as Shiny's MDK requiring a new Pentium CPU despite being perfectly playable (via some file tweaking) on a 486 CPU).
But I digress; PC gaming at the time just wasn't being marketed the way it is today, and had no hope of truly being magic number 3. And PC gaming at the time (and very nearly true today) meant Windows, and Windows meant Microsoft.
So Microsoft realised that there was money in gaming; and since PC gaming was too complicated and cumbersome to capitalise on at the time, there was only one way forward: enter the console battleground.
We all have heard the stories of how the original Xbox was a prototype built out of a Dell as a proof of concept and that the name Xbox (derived from DirectX Box) was a placeholder the development did not quite like (but test audiences loved); this is not what this article is, or how the mere idea of an OS and productivity software gitant that had only recently published a few games (excluding the Flight Simulator of old) and only had a few peripherals under their hardware belt would create a gaming console to compete with the Playstation's powerhouse was met with scepticism and ridicule - both outside and within Microsoft.
In short, the Xbox brand managed to stay aflot thanks to superior hardware (and superior versions of games already on other platforms), online play, overall versatility and games such as Crimson Skies, Fable, Morrowind (this was before Elder scrolls became mega popular), Knights of the Old Republic and the minor, indie hit of...Halo.
And when its successor, the Xbox 360 came out, the landscape had changed.
The PS2 had been the best selling console of all time (155 million units moved by the end of its cycle compared to the paltry 24 million of the Xbox), and had established very popular exclusive franchises of its own, some that last to this day. Sega was a distant dot of a shadow in the past. Nintendo was still on the Gamecube (and would soon release the Wii, going in a more casual direction they have yet to shake off to this day).
The PC was...getting there, but wasn't quite there yet. It was still the superior platform, but still wasn't as easily associated with gaming as a console was, nor was it marketed as one quite as heavily as it eventually would be.
But the Xbox had successfully carved its way in. This...was now the third contestant.
And then...
*thunderclap*
Both the Nintendo Wii and the Playstation 3 were about a year away from launch.
This gave the 360 a year's worth of head start to launch with impressive hardware, impressive features, a controller so good it's only been essentially finetuned to this day, and start building an amazing library, both with its successful franchises of the previous iteration as well as new and iconic ones such as Gears of War, and Forza to go head to head with Playstation's Gran Turismo.
It did not help Sony that Playstation 3 got in its own way one too many times either (which was a whopping 699 dollars on launch), and Nintendo was content to carve its own niche.
The 360 was left to stomp around for one whole year, and as a result the 360 became much, much bigger than its predecessor. Even with its flaws, even with defective batches, even with the red ring of death, even with all the bells and bluray whistles the Playstation 3 eventually launched with, the 360 vs PS3 fight was a close one; too close for comfort for Sony which had grown complacent after dominating for two generations.
By the end, the Playstation won in units moved: 87 million compared to the 360's 84 million, but the 360 had also managed to do something other than moving units: stealing players' hearts away from camp Sony: a significant chunk of them. If the two companies continued down the same path, the market would be anyone's game.
This turned out to be too great an insult for Sony, which vowed to return more powerful than before...
In a twisted reversal of history repeating itself, Sony didn't need to do anything too groundbreaking. With Xbox One Microsoft bit the hand that had nurtured them, managed to annoy gamers, had only a handful of exclusive titles which were eventually ported over on Windows (to this day, the only major Xbox One game not on Windows is Halo 5: Guardians) and suffered a catastrophic loss versus Sony's wildly popular Playstation 4.
It was a bizzare turn, behind which I suspect more than a little of idiotic executive meddling was present: Here was a brand that had been extremely gamer-centric for more than a decade, showing its audience disdain and doing nothing to get on their buyers' good graces.
The result? Xbox One being a non-choice for most of its lifetime, with 41 million units sold so far (remember, it's still being sold today), while Playstation 4 gleefully has sold 115 units to date (and going strong).
Microsoft banked towards PC for a while: PC gaming had finally fully flourished as a flashy ecosystem companies could start milking dry with peripherals, services, subscriptions, RGB and overpriced chairs. So Microsoft Studios (and studios owned by them) slowly started acquiring more studios and IPs, and releasing things on a platform where gaming was synonymous with their other big product: Windows (despite Linux gaming making strides, it's still leagues behind, and Mac gaming is a really good joke).
And yet, having played around with both consoles, and despite handing over the crown to the PS4 due to its far superior library, I have to give to the Xbox than everything about it, from build quality, to heft and controller exudes a sense of...premium-ness.
The hardware was up to snuff. The problem was the attitude, and the lack of games to buy the hardware for.
Enter Xbox Series X and Gamepass.
Now 2020, even with the pandemic in full swing, was a very different beast compared to 2001, 2005 and even 2013.
The PC is by now not only the most advanced platform by far, but also widely recognised as such. Microsoft seems to have anticipated this earlier than Sony (which has only recently started bringing some of their prized IPs to PC).
While both consoles have launched for more than a year now, it's still far too early in the cycle to tell how it's going. Double the people that have purchased a new Xbox seem to have bought a PS5 at this time: but lack of widespread availability and lack of extensive unique libraries for both consoles make any credible extrapolation of data as to which system is actually ahead tenuous at best, when you factor in the PC and Gamepass.
And here's the thing: we have to factor in the PC and Gamepass this time.
Microsoft have understood that they don't need to compete with themselves. Or, more accurately, they have understood how much money gamers are willing to throw down to keep up with our hobby.
So Microsoft's new focus has been to make sure gamers have more and more reasons to give Microsoft money: either by buying a new Xbox and maybe a Gamepass subscription for the more casual no-fuff-no-fuss gamers, or shelling out for a Gamepass subscription on their Windows-running PC for the ones with more money to spend and/or the more tech savvy.
And the reason is simple: Rather than creating new IPs to compete with Playstation, Xbox has decided to buy their way in, which is something that Microsoft can afford to do a hell of a lot more than Sony can.
Microsoft had Halo. They had Forza. They had Gears. They had a bunch of other IPs they could revive.
So they also went out there and have gone on a spending spree and are acquiring studios or making deals that make a huge splash every so often.
A few months ago, that meant Bethesda for 7 billion and some change, which included Bethesda Games, Arkane Studios, id Software, Machinehead Games and others. Elder Scrolls, Doom, Wolfenstein, Fallout and a bunch of other IPs and definitely future titles will eventually stop being available outside of the Xbox ecosystem of Xbox and PC.
Yesterday, this meant purchasing Activision Blizzard for a whopping 68 billion. Which included Blizzard, Sledgehammer, Beenox, Treyarch, Raven, Toys for Bob. This means World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Starcraft, Diablo, Overwatch, and - perhaps more annoyingly for Sony since they popularised these characters which had debuted and been a staple of their lineups- Spyro, and Crash games will eventually only be on the Xbox ecosystem (I can't imagine how much Sony is reeling from losing future Call of Duty titles)
Tomorrow, it can be Rockstar, or Ubisoft, or almost anyone. Heck, after the scale of Activision Blizzard's acquisition, I only consider a few studios beyond acquisition uncertainty, and for reasons of principle, not because of money.
This could potentially "steal" the next GTA or the next RDR or the next Assassin's Creed from their rival platform. Or FIFA. Or Battlefield. Or pretty much any successful franchise currently outside of Microsoft's control that isn't already owned by Sony.
But Microsoft is not some great unifier of gaming, despite trying to brand themselves as such. I've been around too long to buy it so easily.
What they're doing is not making sure they win. It's making sure their opponent loses by slowly taking away pieces from the shared board for their own. And I find that equally exciting for the future of gaming, and equally frightening.
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