The Disastrous Launch of the Xbox One | Past Mortem | SSFF

hey i'm derek it's me derek and this is drew carey and sheila weird way to start the video i know but this was the very first piece of media shown running on an xbox one ever the very first active live demonstration of the xbox one was not a face melting demo of forza or halo or any other hype generating next-gen video game it was drew carey and sheila and it is the moment the xbox brand died orp nearly died and of course not drew carey's fault or sheila's sorry sheila if fault lies with anyone it's this guy don matrick then head of xbox now to be fair this is when it all finally broke but the implosion of the xbox brand was a long time coming from the red ring of death to the increasingly lackluster exclusives that just did not stack up to sony's to the connect their boldfaced attempt to compete with the wii the connect in particular is mostly a joke today but it is easy to forget how wildly unprecedentedly successful it was 8 million connects were sold in the first 60 days at 150 bucks a pop i mean i'm not a calculator yo that is some money but connect's ridiculous success was short-term gain at the long-term cost of pissing off the people who originally made xbox happen and then with xbox one the plan was to make connect just as much a part of the machine as the box itself and that box also needed to be online at all times and wouldn't let you lend games to your friends or buy used games you cannot take away that much stuff without replacing it with something better or just as cool and i'll tell you this easier than ever to stay caught up on the price is right is neither of those things especially with 2013 internet infrastructure being the way it was it is but what was xbox's response to all this we have a product for people who aren't able to get some form of connectivity it's called xbox 360. [Music] yikes well fortunately we have a show for people with some sort of online capability and it's called past boredom where we break down and explore the stories of video games and in this episode we're gonna look at the importance of listening to your customers humility reading the room this is the story of the disastrous launch of the xbox one and the downfall of xbox so this video is sort of a part two to the connect video i made like two years ago but burnout happened and then 2020 and and now we're here so a recap the xbox one launch disaster started way way before even the kinect was a glimmer in don matrix eye after it turned out that rushing the xbox 360 was great for sales but bad for quality microsoft pledged over a billion dollars to salvage its sagging reputation and even microsoft can't slough off a cool billion without answering to shareholders which meant that peter moore got the axe slash found another opportunity conveniently swiftly getting replaced by don matrick as senior vice president of interactive entertainment business matrix didn't come out of nowhere though he got his start in the games industry at just 17 by founding distinctive software which handled a lot of commodore 64 ports for big franchises before selling itself to ea in 1991 and becoming a millionaire look at this it's baby matric but let's be real that's some boss baby energy because magic ended up being really successful at yay helping to produce games like the sims madden and fifa finishing up as ea's president of world wide studios before retiring in 2005 but outside of his professional qualifiers if you need to know anything about don matrick the person there's a few anecdotes that come to mind first from seamus blackley the quote father of xbox when i first came to ea canada to present the idea of a microsoft console he nearly blocked me from addressing the company because he didn't believe it was possible it was tense second and i guess i just want to emphasize this again this guy has been extremely wealthy since the ripe age of 17. he once owned the largest house in british columbia and once at microsoft would frequently commute to redmond washington via private jet something worth knowing i guess you know most people drive to work or if the drive is too long they move to the city that sort of success does something to a person i think third don matric is also notable for his reported fondness for name-dropping celebrities in everyday conversation i saw mention of this in a few places but for example in this feature about him in fast company after mentioning that he loves hockey he just casually mentions the qualifier especially when i get to play with my friend wayne oh yeah just some guy named wayne who plays hockey i wonder who that could be probably just some guy who plays hockey his name is wayne this guy basically don matrick also partially lived in california while at ea and is still even on the board of the university of southern california school for cinematic arts with george lucas and steven spielberg this sort of brush with celebrity and pop culture were at the forefront of his mind when he slid in as head of xbox in 2007 but that was leadership at microsoft what was the climate of video games at the time well 2008 was actually in a lot of ways the overall peak of console gaming and that was due in large part to nintendo because the wii was in the middle of a three-year stretch of selling more than the xbox 360 and ps3 combined sony was in the early throws of recovering from the ps3's rocky launch largely on the back of uncharted and a 100 price cut initially with the 360 microsoft saw sony as their chief competitor but at this point matrix could safely consider sony defeated so he set his sights on the wii he used microsoft's insane resources to build the connect a device that was marketed like it was going to be from clueless stark industry or star trek and to be fair the kinect did boldly go where no one had gone before however the games for it did not live up to the hype the early 2010s were a weird time you know especially for gaming like i said 2008 was the peak and just as suddenly the console market was in a full-fledged decline and no one knew what the right move was is gaming a cell phone thing now are people even gonna want a game when they could just instagram their netflix and chill now that sounds like a joke but for real entertainment is an attention game and social media along with streaming and mobile gaming was rapidly dominating a huge piece of the attention pie on top of that now the halo company was making games for mom and your kid's sister betting on the connect kind of made sense it was the most success the xbox brand had achieved with a mainstream audience so successful it even got matrix promoted to president of interactive entertainment a position that reported directly to microsoft ceo steve ballmer and it made sense too sales overall for consoles started going down around 2008 but the 360s peak year was actually in 2011. that is because of the connect i mean the best-selling game for 360. it's not gears of war it's not halo it's not even grand theft auto 5 it's connect adventures connect was a massive success bye-bye wii if you ignore the fact that the core xbox audience hated it they saw it for what it was microsoft taking them for granted in its bid for the so-called casual market it didn't have the fidelity needed for most games so while connect star wars was the gift that kept on giving it wasn't what gamers wanted from microsoft now luckily gamers could completely ignore the kinect if they wanted there was still halo gears fable okay maybe not so much fable but 360 was still the destination for skyrim gta 4 and i don't know all the call of duty xbox as a brand was still relatively strong even if it was casting a much wider net so even for the core gamers even in the middle of connectimania there was reason to be excited for the xbox one the leaks for the xbox one or durango or 720 or next box whatever you want to call it they came pouring down like a flood honestly it's hard now to look back and catalog all the various rumors that we're swirling around and to identify who or what started when and where but because it's important to remember the headspace gamers were in once the xbox one was finally revealed in 2013 we gotta talk about the rumors as early as 2011 crytek was rumored to be working on time splitters 4 for the xbox 720 a rumor that hurts my heart by the way to be revealed at e3 2012 which did not happen again this hurts my heart and the sky however once we get to 2012 the rumor mill really starts spinning at max speed in january reports came out that the next box would somehow find a way to lock out used games there weren't yet any details on how it would be implemented but it raised a ton of issues like hey how the heck am i supposed to share the hottest games with my kid's sister bye skittles i love you during e3 2012 while microsoft was showing off halo 4 and usher for some reason we got a full-on leak of the upcoming xbox 720. the league painted a picture of a blu-ray plan all-in-one entertainment console that allows tv input it was about six times more powerful than the 360 and came with a connect built in a box that was the only device needed for the living room all for only 2.99 this connect would have better accuracy higher definition camera and dedicated hardware processing a cut feature that was basically the reason why 360 connect hardly worked at all the funniest thing about going back and looking at these articles is seeing how positively a lot of people felt about the leak not many people in this comments section at least focused on the inclusion of an always-on state for the console and i think the 299 price point didn't hurt besides this rumors also swirled that microsoft was planning on making a low-cost alternative to the durango one that would not play games making it a competitor to something like the apple tv or roku things went relatively quiet after this mega leak though microsoft kept filing weird patents for stuff like charging extra if the connect saw that multiple people were watching a movie in your living room just some truly dystopian if you were paying attention it was becoming clearer that xbox would continue the trend it had started with the 360 connect and moved beyond just games essentially the big picture seemed like microsoft was taking the people who had made xbox happen for granted just assuming they'd stick around while xbox pursued greener entertainment pastures how many times have you been watching an episode of south park and thought i'd like to be able to watch this on my television while hooked into my mobile device which is being controlled by my tablet device which is hooked into my oven all while sitting in the refrigerator but at this point they still had plenty of goodwill to burn through well we're not doing that we're just doing this game but what about the competition well we used 2012 launch was a sinking ship selling far less than nintendo had hoped but sony was gearing itself to come correct after the ps3's extremely weak launch sony was initiating a bold new strategy games beyond grade exclusives their bet on high-capacity blu-rays was paying dividends by the 2010s while the aging dvd was kneecapping xbox versions of games hey who wants a player for this version of wolvestown the new order huh just me this brings us to february 2013 where we see sony strategy in full effect with their playstation 4 reveal event which was a gamer bonanza sony didn't show off the console itself but successfully relied on showcasing upcoming releases to drive hype it's notable that they locked down jonathan the braid guy blow i really don't know what i'm gonna do to follow up after all those explosions what jumped shipped to the ps4 as the exclusive console for the witness for the sad fact that microsoft had apparently just stopped returning his calls i think that actually says a lot about microsoft's headspace that they didn't bother to keep in touch with the indie game developer that i mean for me at least put xbox live arcade on the map but sony wasn't done yet they ended their presentation with no less than the first public showing of destiny you know bungie's first game post halo i mean destiny would become a multi-platform game but at the time there wasn't much more of a shots fired we are coming after you microsoft game than that after the presentation sony computer entertainment ceo jack trenton really have it at home with this statement we're focusing on that core gamer the gamer who wants the ultimate experience and lives for gaming if you're not a gamer i don't think you get it damn sony had worked hard to close the sales gap between ps3 and 360 and they were already poised to end this generation on a very high note this was them using that momentum to launch strong with ps4 nintendo had taken themselves out of the picture with a wii u and rumors were that microsoft was well maybe not putting their best foot forward at this point they were just rumors but i think sony could smell blood in the water and this early year presentation was part of that aggressive plan again we are still only in february 2013 but sony had fired the first shot and the new console war had officially started and now it's time for microsoft to clap back and they did not this is what gamers had to hold on to for the next few months on the one hand they had the promise that sony was keeping to the strategy that helped the playstation recover from the ps3's disastrous launch on the other hand there were rumors that microsoft was going to go full-on connect again which wasn't a good look even if it was only going to cost 2.99 well when there's smoke there is fire and reports were flying that the xbox one would in fact require an internet connection in order to function which would help prevent the resale of gains by requiring a one-time use activation code with each disk in effect killing used games or even lending games other leagues confirmed that games would be installed directly to the hard drive and the next box would not be able to use a disk once it was installed in effect killing physical media on october 4th 2013 kotaku released an article where we got a detailed look at how this was supposed to work according to an anonymous source if there isn't a connection no games or wraps could be started if the connection is interrupted then after a period of time currently three minutes if i remember correctly the game slash app is suspended and the network troubleshooter is started oh no that was always online basically confirmed which felt tone death because internet access is spotty all over the world but particularly you know especially in the united states aka xbox's core customers and you know what else the us loves supporting the troops and it turns out that having a consistent internet connection is a problem if you are stationed at a us military base thanks microsoft for making us such a brilliant machine so suddenly fans had a lot more to be worried about than just a little connect if that wasn't big enough news already on the same day as the kotaku article creative director of microsoft studios adam orth broke the cardinal rule of online never tweet sorry i don't get the drama around having an always-on console every device now is always on that's the world we live in hashtag deal with it now i could unpack that for you but instead here are some excerpts from one of the most popular reddit threads at the time as someone who lives in a poor appalachian area i have to say this guy is a poor shaming [ __ ] and i'd live to punch him in the face yeah just ensured that i'll be buying a ps4 if microsoft insists in an always on console it'll make the purchase of a next-gen console easy 100 agree i've been with xbox and xbox live gold for years and spent thousands on games this gent what if they think that equals brand loyalty they're dreaming looks like i'll be switching over to playstation if this is true i just don't understand how microsoft thinks this is a good idea i will never buy a system like that if microsoft chooses to force always on onto consumers i'd imagine the choice would be pretty easy where to go as an alternative wish them all the best of luck with their business model yeah that didn't go over well now rage tours xbox have been simmering for years this was just the moment gamers started turning their back on microsoft and perhaps perhaps unfairly focusing that rage onto orth now i'm sure he would have never said this if he had known that it would basically ruin his life this is the kind of thing you tweet when you do not expect that it'll be seen by millions of people apparently earth was joking and the friend he was tweeting with backed him up but just kidding doesn't put out fires especially after you know everything we've already talked about but also the then recent online kerfluffles with simcity and diablo 3. everyone that was the worst thing blizzard ever did now luckily microsoft came out set everyone down cleared the whole thing up with a complete retraction you want to make sure that you've really set up that console for the long run and making sure you've invested in the right technologies no i'm kidding of course they did not do that i mean they they couldn't do that because as it would turn out all those rumors were absolutely true microsoft officially apologized for hashtag deal with the gate via major nelson and then gave orth the can leave him alone kids he got fired for that but unfortunately deal with it seemed to be the sentiment behind closed doors among the higher ups we have a product for people who aren't able to get some form of connectivity it's called xbox 360. but we didn't know about that yet and to be fair i guess microsoft released an internal memo to xbox employees about a month after hashtag deal with the gate saying this durango is designed to deliver the future of entertainment while engineered to be tolerant of today's internet there are a number of scenarios that our users expect to work without an internet connection and those should just work regardless of their current connection status those include but are not limited to playing a blu-ray disc watching live tv and yes playing a single player game oh man if i had a nickel for every time i got a memo from the boss that was like alright team you know that thing we've been doing let's just keep doing that thing and don't you be leaking this memo to the press or anything the fact is microsoft wasn't directly clarifying nothing this internal memo was the closest thing we ever got to a clapback until there was an announcement that there was gonna be an announcement but hey may 21st and that's only 19 days before microsoft's big e3 show finally xbox fans had a time and date to look forward to i feel like i should point out that sony had their ps4 reveal three months earlier at this point but hey i guess that's really how it'll be sometimes surely microsoft being completely unprepared to respond to sony is gonna be some kind of recurring theme or anything i mean there are theories out there that it took microsoft this long to slap together a panic conference after sony's february event but at any rate may 21st came around and the big xbox one reveal for my money microsoft had two big fires to put out one always online two no used games and before i re-watched this conference for this video i thought to myself it cannot be as bad as i remember but it is somehow actually so much worse and i got the highlights let's do this it starts off nice enough with a cute video showing off a who's who of microsoft and this amazing line you and your tv are going to have a relationship yeah pr team really knocking it out of the park with that one but next we get to see mr charisma himself don matric and it's not so bad this is it xbox one this is it the peak of the conference now rumor is we can thank sony for this moment microsoft specifically wanted to show the entire console to counter sony not showing theirs way back in february and after showing us the console we get a demo of how the kinect is always online and listening to us xbox on all right cool it's on now next we're gonna see xbox play games no you already saw this here we are the first piece of media they showcase on an xbox one happens 10 minutes in and it's the drew carey price is right on a gaming console that's supposed to play video games this is the moment drew carries dumb face and sheila hey sheila this is the moment right here that they never come back from all the goodwill from halo through the rendering of death to the connect to now almost 10 years of goodwill finally burnt through this conference focuses so heavy on tv movies so now i can use internet explorer and my cell phone is a remote control for example to watch a trailer and i can even navigate to find movie times and buy tickets yusuf no baby no no you don't use your cell phone as a remote you use your cell phone and that's the endless sentence and it just keeps going not a single video game in sight we get the obligatory skype sports and here's how he helps me dominate the fantasy league more tv oh then at 20 minutes we get this we're bringing a new connect sensor paired with every xbox one which puts you at the center of your entertainment okay so the rumors were true every xbox one was getting a connect packed in and then finally at 27 minutes we get some games and it's an ea sports infomercial which means the first games they showed weren't even console exclusives then finally at the halfway point halfway through our hour-long conference head of microsoft games studios phil spencer gets on stage looking like an absolute snack damn and we get some forza a bafflingly awful partially live action commercial for quantum break and the promise of 15 exclusive games whoa the hd fidelity on that powerpoint slide only possible with the power of the xbox one wow and then we're back to tv oh the structure of this is so bad i wish i was lying to you i wish i was re-editing this and lying to you all but no this is this is this is really what they showed we believe that the television screen remains the most relevant most important screen in the home oh phil no they got to you too we get promised a halo tv show from steven spielberg's ambulance productions and by the way not forward unto dawn not nightfall not the anime no a brand new halo show from this guy but did ever happen was that was that cancelled wait hold on a second no you did not miss it don't worry and it's scheduled to come out still in uh 2022 exclusively to xbox oh sorry that's not i'm pronouncing it wrong paramount plus noted home of xbox paramount plus thanks steven xbox is about to become the next water cooler and this is only act one xbox go home you're drunk so surely that means this train wreck is finally coming to a close no more tv game-changing football flavor this time why does this just feel like an excuse for don matrick to hang out with roger goodell no but we do get a release date i'm pleased to announce okay me up don let's do this that we'll be launching yeah all right xbox one yeah talk to him donnie around the world later this year yeah that's how we do it wait hold on what that that's not that's not a release date that's not a release date and and they're applauding you're plotting for later this year later this year and you're applauding and then we close out with a 10-minute call of duty ghosts infomercial which again not even an xbox one exclusive i mean it's a good dog it's a great dog even but are we really going to devote i don't know math 16 of all reveal oh then fade to black all right yeah no that's that that's cool i mean sony got to premiere bungie's first post halo game and you got to premiere the next call of duty what a whimper of a conference that was really it a conference that seemed more intent on selling cable tv than actual games any questions gamers had about the rumors backwards compatibility how used games and drm will be handled the always online is the connect monitoring my living room at all times none of these were explicitly addressed or answered this press conference should be shown in school as an example of how not to launch a product before the reveal i think xbox push od the outrage around all the rumors believing that once people saw the official pitch they'd get it and i guess they did get it where the video games xbox was taking a game console and making it worse i don't know how the top brass at xbox could ignore the imploding of their brand to this point but it was clear that this reveal was a major flashpoint that sent xbox scrambling and luckily the press was on hand to hold microsoft's feet to the fire xbox one like ps4 was not going to have backwards compatibility but where sony was coined with the details wall street journal got dom matrix to say on record if you're backwards compatible you're really backwards mr charisma at it again he does bar mitzvahs and children's birthday parties too folks always online and used games became huge sticking points for xbox one wired put out an article that reported that all games were required to install the hard drive to play or tied to your xbox live account and that if a disk was used with a second account that owner would be given an option to pay a fee and install the game that they already owned holding in their hands after that article went live microsoft cleared the air by clarifying further details were forthcoming which is pr speak for we don't know what's happening major nelson also posted a blog saying that customers would be able to resell and buy games and that if you're at a friend's house there is no fee to play your game while you are signed into your own profile which i'm not an expert but that sounds an awful lot like xbox plan to drm used games to help him back i mean i say it sounds like it only because that's exactly what it is but microsoft just didn't come out and say it in terms of always online microsoft corporate vice president phil harrison claimed that some things like movies and playing certain single-player games would work without a connection which is in line with that memo from before the conference all right that's cool apparently that certain word was included because a lot of that would be up to if the publisher wanted to use cloud processing which would require an internet connection but again the option was in fact there however when asked about the drm function of always online we haven't introduced the details of that today but like i said it will be very user friendly great great great story bro later that day kotaku reported that the xbox one was required to connect with the internet at least once every 24 hours and then three hours later microsoft attempted to walk that back to polygon saying that there have been reports of a specific time period those were discussions of potential scenarios but we have not confirmed any details today nor will we be potential scenarios huh now there's a phrase doing a lot of heavy lifting what a mess it would probably have been a good idea to get everyone on the same page before turning them loose at the press but hey i'm just the dumb guy that likes dumb stuff channel what do i know harrison even did re-interviews to try and make it make sense but quite frankly it was still a bad look clarification and confirmation didn't come until several weeks later on june 6th where microsoft summed it up like this with xbox one you can game offline for up to 24 hours on your primary console or one hour if you are logged on to a separate console accessing your library offline gaming is not possible after these prescribed times until you re-establish a connection but you can still watch live tv and enjoy blu-ray and dvd movies oh wow what a concession oh i can still enjoy live tv thank you melish i'm gonna get to the rest of the june 6 press release in a second but hey i already have a means to watch tv and dvds the difference is the games now i am a used game guy i mean that's how i got the majority of my games but even i was not the only one asking how could xbox one possibly make my life better microsoft's position was basically that they wanted to move games to a digital format but they still had to keep those discs around because it was 2013 it was 2013. that was way too early to attempt to kill discs or if you're going to kill discs gotta give me a good reason why and so far the best you got is drew carey and sheila hey sheila no i almost forgot about this about that live tv it wasn't even going to be available outside the us at launch and there wasn't even a timetable for what it would be in hindsight it was ridiculous and at the time it was ridiculous how ridiculous we use sales shot up by almost 400 on amazon after the xbox one conference and also what about our old buddy the kinect well beyond microsoft packing them in with every console they also upgraded it with a wider field of view and better camera they were also claiming that it would have unprecedented fidelity precision and accuracy for games something we had heard many times before it made sense to be skeptical especially when the xbox one revealed conference was responsible for activating people's 360 connects and killing the live stream go to internet explorer okay but the xbox one connect was going to be better and it was going to always be listening especially for voice commands on that front harrison said this to eurogamer we aren't using connect to snoop on anybody at all we listen for the word xbox on and then switch on the machine but we don't transmit personal data in any way shape or form that could be personally identifiable to you unless you explicitly opt into that and while harrison said they don't transmit personal data that can be connected to you that certainly doesn't mean they aren't collecting it it wasn't enough to make people not want to deal with the connect altogether however they didn't have a choice with harrison even calling the xbox one and the kinect one and the same xbox one connect chicken egg so people were pissed about the connect but it wasn't talked about on the same level as the always online or used games issue at least not yet microsoft must have realized their messaging needed some work because they release what could only be described as a flurry of press releases on june 6th just four days before the big e3 conference even going back to all these press releases now is confusing but i want us all to be on the same page as microsoft going into e3 so here's the gist one the console must connect to the internet every 24 hours two xbox one will allow used game sales but only at participating retailers and only if the publisher allows it three not only will gifting and loading your games be restricted lending your games won't be available at launch but lastly you can turn the connect off if you want to you turn it off i'll give them that there's a w you can turn the connect off that was the best they got i assumed this was their attempt to get ahead of the news cycle so that e3 could just be a hype generating bonanza unfortunately all this was confusing and mostly bad plus guess what happened literally the day before the big conference the man who sent the obama administration into defend and explain mode this week his name is edward snowden we now know that the government has been actively collecting an unprecedented amount of information that phone in your pocket right now might be a government spying device today he came out as the leaker of classified nsa documents yes edward snowden came forward to reveal prism the nsa's massive global surveillance program a program microsoft was complicit in by the way though that wouldn't be revealed for another month i don't know people watching this really remember the edward snowden saga as the concerns that sparked about privacy seem a little quaint compared to what's happened since but for months it was the biggest news story in the world especially in the united states suddenly being spied on was at the forefront of everyone's mind i bet the amish are feeling pretty smug right now just in time for microsoft to make good on xbox one and the kinect you literally can't write this stuff if this were a movie no one would believe that snowden happened literally the day before their second big press conference but that is just how wild this story gets it is barely june and already xbox was on fire and in desperate need of some kind of course correction luckily they had an opportunity it was time for the electronic entertainment expo the highest profile gaming event of the year and it was make or break time for xbox finally it's time for the reveal for the gamers e3 2013 baby that last one and those even count this one e3 this was their chance to set the record straight and all eyes were on xbox this would be their third or fourth great time to reverse course or come correct with a coherent honest talk about everyone's concerns with the xbox one and how they do and as we've been promising it's all about the games and to be fair this presentation was all about the games but it was also still a disaster this was xbox's chance for some i don't know radical honesty intense groveling but of course they weren't prepared to do that or maybe they thought their press release dumped back on june 6th was enough instead the whole thing just felt like a typical e3 press conference complete with hype for new games and embarrassing technical difficulties the demo features dynamic gameplay that can happen only in battlefield okay let's be honest technical difficulties at e3 press conferences are not rare in here it's just the sound cutting out that's not even close to the worst thing that can or has happened before however it is rare to hear people heckle like this right so i'm not gonna do a deep dive on this presser like i did for the initial reveal because the things it does wrong aren't in the press conference really it's about what wasn't in the conference the stuff they tried to dance around with their june 6th info dump the one exception though would be the xbox one's price which was announced by phil spencer at 499 dollars in the us and 499 euros in european markets wow 4.99 you know that reminds me of something that's right 499 us dollars and 549 canadian dollars furthermore not only was that a full 200 higher than the most expensive 360 at the time it was also if you'll remember two hundred dollars more than what many had predicted you could actually hear how shocked the audience was 429 pounds in the uk and then they're like oh that's right we're supposed to clap oh oh god woof that price took things from bad to worse in fact i would say that this from the cascades that started with drew carey and sheila sorry sheila was the actual moment the xbox brand died but nope as you'd know if you'd watch that year's most popular show things can always get worse playstation's big e3 conference was just six hours later you cannot write this stuff and sony played it cool at first showing off games bragging about specs typical e3 stuff but then things got interesting for instance playstation 4 won't impose any new restrictions on the use of ps4 games when a gamer buys a ps4 disc they have the rights to use that copy of the game they can trade in the game at retail sell it to another person lend it to a friend or keep it forever double kill in addition playstation 4 disc based games don't need to be connected online to play [Applause] ps4 won't require you to check in online periodically and it won't stop working if you haven't authenticated within 24 hours unstoppable seriously we had to cut out so much cheering i encourage you to watch it for yourself it is just two solid minutes of an audience losing their minds and then a few minutes later the death blow the fatality the price i'm very proud to announce that playstation 4 will be available at 399 dollars [Applause] that's right the playstation 4 would be a full 100 cheaper than the xbox one sony literally coming out bullet point by bullet point in their conference to say the gamers hey we're the good ones but at playstation concepts like true consumer ownership and consumer trust are central to everything we do every single misstep that microsoft made sony was there to capitalize and they weren't even done twisting the knife later that night they dropped the most savage commercial i've ever witnessed this is how you share your games on ps4 thanks holy sh can you believe this was an era where the killer app was lending games that is patently ridiculous but this is what microsoft did to themselves it was over drew carey and sheila sorry phil you didn't sign up for this that was the moment that xbox lost but for me this commercial was the moment that ps4 won it is the most brutal e3 takedown since sony buried the sega saturn with a simple 2.99 the sad thing is that it wasn't over yet the next day matrix had the opportunity to do interviews to set the record straight to come out as the face of xbox and right this ship after the beating they had taken the night prior thanks matric would have no choice but to bear a soul to consumers and let us know that there would be some serious soul searching going on in the next several days it was time for microsoft to make some serious amends and matric was just the man to do it team xbox is on a new mission okay i'm kidding that did not happen fortunately we have a product for people who aren't able to get some form of connectivity it's called xbox 360. right so stick with 360 that's your message if you don't like it if you have zero access to the internet that is an offline device wow you saw it like like i'm i'm speechless how how how can someone be so thoroughly detached from their audience from their brand that they could think that this was this would be okay i mean after months weeks and weeks of his loyal customers berating and pleading for a change of course like he obviously knows about that right otherwise he wouldn't be gaslighting bloomberg with this um actually we're over delivering value with the xbox one i mean he fired adam orth over the outrage and i guess that was for nothing there's just no way to explain this except maybe he's checked out maybe don just didn't care anymore i mean this is a guy who's been insanely successful since the smells like teen spirit music video he's probably used to winning and being good at his job i mean madden fifa the sims and then the connect i'm sure he's experienced failure before but not on a scale like this i can understand why he'd rather be thinking about greener pastures the writing was on the wall and the brand that microsoft had spent billions building was basically as good as done but luckily it wouldn't come to that on june 19th 10 days after the disastrous e3 press conference xbox sobered up took a cold shower and completely reversed its drm policy for what it's worth matrix signed his name to it at the time though part of it still feels uh a little reluctant i guess you guys aren't ready for that yet it was still a complete about face no more always online and games will be tied to discs that you could sell and trade as you please that's what we in the biz call the old xbox 180. it has got to be the biggest backtrack in gaming history this side of resident evil 4 being a gamecube exclusive but that's not the only xbox 180 360 720 backtracking that happened yep on july 1st just 22 days after that e3 conference don matrice pulled to peter moore and found another opportunity yeah he bounced reportedly he signed a contract to be the ceo of zynga you know the farmville people on a friday and announced it to everybody on a monday and no one at microsoft seemed to know beforehand they didn't even have a replacement ready dude literally destroyed the xbox brand and 20 days later took off like he left a fart in an elevator the audacity of this man by the way he ended up leaving zynga less than two years later if you're wondering how that went so anyway steve ballmer the ceo of microsoft had to step in as head of xbox but he was already almost out the door himself things were clearly a mess at microsoft by august they just casually announced in an ign q a that not only will the xbox one work without the connector turned on it could be unplugged all the way as well boom just like that the kinect was no longer required for the system pressure had been mounting for months of course but after snowden no one was excited to have this cute 100 robot that seemed to exist primarily to listen to your conversation in case you happen to say xbox on of course the kinect was required in some sense it still came with the xbox one and you still had to pay 500 bucks for the whole package and microsoft still insisted it was essential for the console and i'm sure most you know how the story ends in november 2013 xbox one launched and despite neither system really having great launch games it was vastly outsold by the playstation 4. it would appear it was about more than just the games there would never be a moment where xbox one sold better than the ps4 by may 2014 phil spencer was the new head of xbox and microsoft launched a new xbox one without the connect for 3.99 same price as the ps4 to put that in perspective matrix vision for xbox's future started with the connect which launched in holiday 2010 but despite its amazing success just three and a half years later his mark was almost completely erased and this is just anecdotal but in all my thrifting trips i see xbox 360 connects all the time but i honestly cannot remember the last time i've ever seen an xbox one connect at a thrift store and i live in seattle apparently satya nadella microsoft's new ceo floated the idea to spencer that they just give up on gaming on xbox altogether but spencer still believed in xbox if we're going to stay in the gaming space then let's make sure we're all in the last thing i wanted to do was run the gaming organization here as a kind of afterthought of the company and kind of half in half out let's go fix who we are for e3 2014 xbox published a feedback form where fans could directly call for new features to xbox and when hard on messaging themselves is all about gamers from there xbox would backtrack on more and more of xbox one's initial initiatives the kinect was finally taken out behind a barn and put out of its misery in october 2017 but not before e3 2015 when xbox went from backwards compatibility is backwards to this today i'm pleased to announce xbox one backward compatibility just listen to that crowd now that is reading the room [Music] of course that was the end of the connect but the story of xbox lives on let us know if there are any more topics you'd like us to deep dive on for another episode of past boredom are there any more xbox topics we have uh we've done five big ass videos on the xbox maybe it's time for sony or something else to have some time in the sun this video was written by producer grace with help from myself cass from bad game hall of fame and sober dwarf it was edited by silver dwarf with some finishing touches by myself and i want to thank in order of appearance our special voiceover cast super bunny hop botcha mania mother's basement rerez epic game music mom milf osw reviews miss fushi autum ivy h bomberguy and the notorious matt mcmuscles and of course as always our patreon supporters those pledges really help us you know take our time with videos like this to make them these deep dive videos this is our longest video ever and that was your fault that sounded like an insincere laugh i don't know why and also i want to thank uh anyone who ever asked over the last year and a half or so whatever happened to the follow up to the connect video hope it was worth the wait we have a stacked lineup though for the rest of the year so hey comment share subscribe tell a friend and stay powerful because we'll see you again really soon

Channel: Stop Skeletons From Fighting

Views: 640,193

Keywords: don mattrick, hvgn, past mortem, ssff, ssff xbox, stop skeletons from fighting, the fall of xbox, xbox, xbox 360, xbox 360 launch, xbox launch, xbox one, xbox one 2013, xbox one announcement, xbox one fail, xbox one launch, xbox one launch day, xbox one launch disaster, xbox one reveal

Id: GcZD__XquCk

Length: 47min 56sec (2876 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 13 2021