Tomorrow is a big day for Microsoft’s Xbox brand. Their first Xbox console did a lot to broaden appeal of core gaming, for the first time actively pursuing an audience of sports fans and MTV addicts, college students and pop-culture vultures. They Americanised gaming and that has permeated our own culture perhaps more than the Eastern console makers might have been able to hope for – in turn influencing how Sony and Nintendo create and position their own brands outside of Japan.
The Xbox 360 quickly followed and it focused even more successfully on raising the profile of core gaming, pushing hardcore shooters into the daily discourse of rappers and mainstream chat show hosts. Xbox Live was perhaps not quite revolutionary but certainly made playing online games with others, and all the social connectivity that might encourage, much more prevalent. Kinect brought voice commands, gestures and one-to-one avatar representation to the console-playing masses.
All of these things have changed the industry as it is today – not just for Microsoft, but for their competitors too and for the customers of all three home console makers. Now we stand on the brink of another dawn for the home console market and the Xbox brand has had to navigate some difficult waters to get here. Tomorrow is a big day.
Nestled as it is between Sony’s two most important dates – their tremendously successful North American launch and their lamentably tardy European launch – the Xbox One has a lot to live up to. But it also has an opportunity.
Initial sales should be strong – although the messaging from Microsoft in the first couple of months after they unveiled the console was a little confused, they’ve mostly managed to pull it back on track. Anyway, just how much the wider audience hears or cares about those issues is endlessly debatable.
My guess is that a sensational U-turn on many of its initial policies and some insensitive language from former top executives won’t make too much of a dent in the popularity of Microsoft’s new machine. Likewise the more recent controversies (if we could call them that) about resolutions probably don’t get much consideration from the vast majority of people who end up buying a new console. Microsoft, like Sony, could sell every unit they can make before Christmas.
For the console industry, that would be an incredibly positive sign. That the eventual “winner” of the launch sales battle might be decided by something as mundane as who can manage their global supply lines most effectively is astounding. And astonishingly positive for us.
Put yourself, for a moment, in the shoes of a top level publisher with a multi-million dollar budget to assign to development projects. Having a first quarter install base of over three or four million potential purchasers of your game is an incredibly strong indicator that there will be enough people that you can sell to to cut a nice healthy return on your investment. So you’d be much more likely to pump development budgets into a top quality console game, wouldn’t you?
There are indicators that this is just the kind of thinking that stalled Wii U releases – suffering for its faltering sales over the past year – as well as arresting some Vita projects. With the North American sales success of the PS4, and the hopeful future success of the Xbox One around the world and PS4 in Europe, that issue has already started melting away for those consoles.
Microsoft’s newest console is, in many ways, the natural evolution of a project they started a couple of years after the initial launch of the Xbox 360. The tiled menu system, the social interactions, the media streaming and (for North America, at least) the TV integration. Tomorrow sees a new console launch but it doesn’t see any significant new ideas. This hardware jump is incremental, rather than revolutionary.
But it’s also not the end. You only have to cast your mind back to the Xbox 360 that launched to realise how far the system came during its life so far. Again, that’s not something that’s unique to Xbox consoles – this gradual feature creep and interface evolution has been a defining characteristic of the current generation. if the Xbox One continues on that trajectory, the next few years are going to be very exciting indeed.
Tomorrow marks the halfway point for Sony’s western PS4 release but it’s the day that the Xbox One goes all-in. All at once we’ll see the world wake up to a brand new member of the Xbox family. We’ll get to gauge the reactions, listen the commentary and watch the excitement unfold over the following week as we await Sony’s next big mark on the calendar and the ensuing bump of positivity that it brings with it.
Many have decried that consoles are dead. Murdered by the svelte silhouette of a tablet and smartphone partnership that simply can’t be equalled for ease of access and ubiquity. I would argue that we’re almost precisely in the middle of the traditional home videogame console’s assertion of rude health. Even the phenomenal sales figures we’ve seen of the PS4 and expect of the Xbox One are by no means a knockout blow in the fight for gaming’s future but home consoles have learned to adapt and assimilate certain practices made famous by mobile devices. They’ve survived the standing eight-count and they’re coming out swinging.
So there’s plenty to look forward to, for all shades of console gamer, and the Xbox One will play a major role in the fortunes and evolutions of all platforms. Tomorrow is a big day for Microsoft’s Xbox brand. Tomorrow is a big day for us all.
Blair Inglis
It is a very exciting time for games :)
bunimomike
Lovely article but this bit feels so disingenuous and sticks out like a sore thumb >> “All at once we’ll see the world wake up to a brand new member of the Xbox family.”
My annoyance is that it makes it sounds like the console is a truly global launch but it’s not. The initially impressive list was gimped, hugely. Then, there’s still information being released about how Kinect doesn’t work in some countries and region locking is also stifling others. Thirteen countries is good but only that. Not great. Not supreme. Just “good”.
My frustration with the comment isn’t really aimed at you, Peter. You know me better than that. :-) It’s just that it gives the wrong impression… at least to me. :-)
Peter Chapman
I get your point, and I considered that sentence for exactly that reason but I left it in because I thought it intoned the balance of coverage we’ll see being largely global. It’s about as global as these things ever get – there are countries that have only recently seen the launch of the PS3, for example, as well as many that never saw the console on sale at all.
So yeah, “global” is perhaps a bit of an overstep, given the countries that won’t have a dedicated release but it is the widest scale of console release we’ve ever had, I think. Certainly more so than the previous Xbox or any of Sony’s consoles (and certainly more than the PS4 that’s winding me up so much by being so obviously out in North America!)
bunimomike
Aye. Above all else, it’s just easier to say it like that. I just hate that “have you seen where it’s NOT launching this week?” and I’d be saying the same with the PS4 if that were the case too. What saddens me is how miserable the mainland European coverage is.
Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain.
Bloody hell! That’s a positively anorexic list right there.
Peter Chapman
I’m just annoyed they ignored my pleas to not release it in Wales :P
bunimomike
Like Kinect could fu**ing understand me, see, innit? Tidy like! :-)
“Xbox… Where by is my sheep?”
“Xbox… I wanna play Forza now in a minute!”
“Xbox… Ydych chi’n siarad Cymraeg?” *silence* “Racist bastard console”
:-)
freezebug2
Lol, Capital dialect should be fine but I’m not sure what Kinect would make of the Valleys accent with it’s lyrical undertones, the XBone will probably autoboot ‘Disney Sing it’!
Starman
Nice article Peter. Next gen is almost here!
OnlineAssassinOA
Yep just over a week to go for us here in the UK Can’t wait! ;)
Starman
Tonight!
OnlineAssassinOA
No 29th ;D
Starman
Stop being a berk.
OnlineAssassinOA
:D lol
DividSmythe
Good article. I do really hope all Xboxers have a great time this weekend. I’ll wait till closer to Xmas 2014 before I purchase mine.
boeboe
Is there anyone else on TSA that wished video games was just Sony and Nintendo? One of the reasons being is it comes across that Microsoft really have to force a reason to buy their stuff. Whereas with Nintendo and Sony it just feels natural? I also think Nintendo are being bullied out, I really feel for them. They are the heart of video games.
stonyk
Some great memories last gen with 360 – but the greatest thing about MS is they forced Sony to compete and bring out PS+. Without MS we wouldn’t have had that.
boeboe
Yeah thats true, competition. If there was no Xbox though, the people who made the Halo’s and Gears and other great creations would be working to make games on whatever platform existed. We could be playing something even better than Halo now, who knows. Don’t forget Rare, heres a video; don’t get emotional:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfaN267lI_Y
Starman
I think with only half a million wiiu sales Nintendo are the ones needing to force people to buy their products. They rested on their laurels for too long and paid the price.
Moshbag
Bit of an aside here, but did anyone read the iTest of the PS4 in the i newspaper today? It’s like they sent someone’s gran to look at it. The piece is littered with errors, both typographical and factual, but my favourite line was “Sony claims that Kill Shock is the first of true next generation first-person shooters”. Sadly it’s been corrected in the online version (which is still full of mistakes).
stonyk
My question to Xboners out there – do any of you have yours delivered today already? Especially from Amazon? Just interested mind :-)
Peter Chapman
Mine is preordered through Game and not showing any signs at all of arriving early.
TSBonyman
Have fun tonight/tomorrow all you xbox fans – i’ll be quite envious until i pick up my PS4 next week.
OneShotWook
‘They Americanized gaming’,I’m reeling in shock here Mr.Chapman,what no love for Atari??
Seriously though to anyone getting the bone tomorrow happy days.Personally got the itch to hit game and pick mine up at midnight.Killer Instinct all week until my ps4 lands.
Gotta say that i’m just as stoked going into this gen as i was when i first fell in love with Elite on the BBC model B micro way back when.Heres to another forty years of video gaming.