The Man that Destroyed Xbox

it may seem a bit harsh to blame all of Xbox's failures on one man a full decade after he left Xbox when you look at Xbox's current state and the fact that their boss has said they're in third place Don matrick unfortunate influence and terrible decisions can still be felt even a decade after he left Xbox largely due to mistakes that were made towards the back end of the Xbox 360 era and the abysmal unveiling of the follow-up console the Xbox One the brand has been chasing after Sony ever since and even now Xbox is still struggling [Music] it doesn't help that Don matrick followed Xbox's best boss Peter Mo LED Xbox from 2003 until he left for EA Sports in 2007 one thing Peter Mo got right was the 360s first and third party lineup as even Grand Theft aut 4 launched on the Xbox on the same day as PlayStation Plus new franchises like Mass Effect and Bioshock that launched exclusively on the Xbox 360 I always thought that M was an unpopular figure given his time at EA but now let's part with that all EA Sports saying get the F out of my building but fans look back on his tenure fondly his goal for Xbox was to take the fight to PlayStation and he understood quite clearly that great exclusives sell consoles now let's take a look at the Xbox 360 momentum since the other two consoles launched and out selling PlayStation 3 by nearly two to one but this also includes launch your console with the red ring of death which led to a very generous returns policy even with this huge defect the Xbox 360 was still worth it at the time Xbox Came Out Swinging in this generation they launched a full year before their rivals on top of having great first and third party games it had the best online console experience it pioneered digital distribution for consoles achievements and helped to popularize Indie Games with promotions like Xbox Live arcade Wednesdays and later the summer of arcade Peter Mo would be a hard act to follow Don matrick had worked in the industry since the 1980s which included a 15E stint as president at EA before taking the Joba Xbox when he joined Xbox in 2007 the Xbox 360 was riding High and outselling the PlayStation 3 but by this point it was still playing second fiddle to the Nintendo wiii Xbox and Sony jumped on the motion control bandwagon and both would debut their own devices in 2009 it would seem that Don matrick would be blinded by the success of the Wii it didn't matter that the motion controls were terrible especially if you tried to make a gameplay mechanic that was even a little bit more complicated than swinging a golf club Xbox had already made a move at the Casual crowd and ripped off Nintendo's mies with avatars in 2008 now you could earn rewards in games to dress your avatar as if it was your own Sim it should covers no surprise that while at EA Don matrick was involved with a series like The Sims I can't count how many avatars I saw wearing the helmets from Halo ODST avatars were also used in some indie games in game shows as well as connect games speaking of connect in 2009 it would make its debut at E3 under the name project Nal going one step further than the Wii it was just a camera and no controller as according to Don matrick a standard controller is seen as a barrier to entry for far too many people the controller is a barrier separating video game players from everyone else aside from this sounding like he's trying to create a divide between Gamers and non-gamers he seems to be forgetting that the Wii had a controller there will be a bunch of demos for connect Games showing happy 2.2 families in in their gigantic living rooms with most of these games being either party dance or sports games I wonder why Xbox still had a decent first party lineup at this point but the third party offering would start to suffer as a number of series like Bioshock Lost Planet and Mass Effect would make their way over to PlayStation eventually well under Peter Moore Xbox's goal was to take down PlayStation but under Don matrick connect was now Xbox's focus and Nintendo was the new enemy connect's launch was hailed as a success as it sold 8 million units in Just 2 months and the Xbox 360 did see an increase in sales in late 2011 the 360 had its biggest sales week in the consol's history despite the strong sales the motion controls sucked you ever wonder what the bottom of an avatar shoe looks like well bam there it is like the Wii basic motions were okay but trying anything that required Precision wouldn't work this was a device that appealed just to the Casual audience almost immediately the core audience rejected connect and looking at the marketing and lineup of games it's easy to see why SC Xbox would desperately try to make games that appeal to the core audience but the device just wasn't capable of doing anything that required precision and sometimes it just had a mind of its own Su in some cases navigating menus was a complete nightmare enter the world race for the best time on each course team up in a real also a number of great Studios will put to work make connect exclusives so again the first party lineup would be less appealing rare were now making wi sport ripoffs and Adventure party games for connect while liing head the developers of the Fable games made a firstperson on Rails action RPG that had a fairly mixed reception at best and unfortunately this would be the company's last release before closing their doors in 2016 Xbox didn't learn from the mistakes of the Wii as like the Wii the hype soon died off motion controls were just another fad but this one had lasted for the entire generation and unfortunately for Don Matrix Xbox had arrived to the party 5 years too late the PlayStation 3 on the other hand focused on making great games they improveed the online experience and added a new subscription service and the first party offering were Game of the Year contenders Xbox put out a documentary series called power on detailing the rise of Xbox and episode 4 is entirely devoted to Halo and its sequel they are very up front here that without Halo XBox wouldn't exist Microsoft had that platform defining title that you had to go out and buy an Xbox if if you wanted to play without Halo you know we're not here Halo Combat Evolved which makes it all the more disappointing when you look at the shovelware and broken promises because of connect the first Xbox didn't sell anywhere near the same amount as the PlayStation 2 but a game as good as Halo is a reason to buy the console but in the 360 era Don matrick wanted you to buy an Xbox because of connect the brand lost sight of what made the Xbox 360 worth buying in favor of trend chasing and over time this put Sony back in the game by the end of the generation the PlayStation 3 overtook the 360 and Xbox would once again end up finishing in third place for many Xbox fans the Xbox One and its abysmal reveal will forever be Don matri Legacy if you've ever wondered why the Third Xbox console had a very confusing name it's because this console was meant to be an all-in-one entertainment Hub which included Games Movies TV and live sports which means the whole reveal event could basically be summarized with TV TV TV TV sports TV TV TV in the final episode of power on this episode about the Xbox One is quite eye-opening not very surprising and a little bit depressing as each person would get off stage you know the execs in the room would ask what the pulse is on social and it was not good this is not going well this is not going well at all to his credit D matrick was interviewed for the series and gave insight into why Xbox took this approach with this console as he mentioned that more people use the Xbox 360 to watch TV than play games which would explain the sudden obsession with TV and movies it just announced that for the first time people are using the Xbox more for entertainment TV movies and music than for playing video games it was exciting to think about what a single-purpose dedicated entertainment console could be but this is terrible logic I bought an Xbox 360 because it had Halo 3 and Grand Theft o4 not because I could watch Netflix it's like buying an iPhone because it has the best calculator app it's a nice to have but not the reason to buy the device a better example would be the Nintendo switch the console doesn't even have a Disney plus HBO Max or Amazon Prime app but the sales far exceeded that of the Xbox one as it had a great lineup of games and was much cheaper it's as if people were buying a games console to play video games on top of that connect was back you suck but by now the hype of connect was well and truly dead even worse you couldn't buy the console without connect included whether you liked it or not after the terrible reveal event for the Xbox One they tried to cost correct for E3 with a greater focus on games but this came with the reveal that the console would be always online wouldn't play used games and would cost $500 at launch and Sony were very quick to pounce on this this is how you share your games on PS4 thanks I'm very proud to announce that PlayStation 4 will be available at $399 before the consoles had even launched Sony had practically w this generation due to this price tag the always Online requirements were a sour spot for many but Don matrick didn't care fortunately we have a product for people who aren't able to get some form of connectivity it's called Xbox 360 in the previous generation the Xbox 360 was easy to develop for and cheaper than the PlayStation 3 while the Xbox one was harder to develop for and more expensive than the PlayStation 4 in late 2013 the Xbox One launched in third place and it stayed there for Xbox it's been that way for the last 10 years [Music] Zinga has announced that Don matrick has joined its ranks as chief executive officer less than one month after the abysmal E3 press conference Don matrick left Xbox to join mobile game developer Zinger where he would last a full 2 years before resigning from that role Don matrick wasn't even an Xbox to see the Xbox One's launch as Phil Spencer would be his successor Xbox one had a pretty decent lineup for the console's launch but it did include one of the worst launch titles in history that just so happened to be a connect game big surprise there while connect was included with every Xbox One at launch by May of the following year connect was dropped which brought the price of the Xbox one down to $400 but this was too little too late Phil Spencer has said the Xbox one and PlayStation 4 era was the most costly generation to lose as digital distribution became more popular with the Xbox one and PlayStation 4 Gamers now have a library that they've slowly built up over the course of several years so persuading consumers to jump ship from One console to another is even more difficult now than ever before it would explain why the following Xbox console would have a cheaper version with no disc drive to reduce the barrier to entry for Xbox this shouldn't excuse the more recent mistakes Xbox has made the weaker first and third party lineup has been in issue since the Xbox One days and the disappointing releases of Starfield and redfall have done very little to persuade consumers to jump ship more recently there have been layoffs weak console sales and now Studio closures you can absolutely not blame D matrick for this but it feels like Xbox has been trying to play catchup ever since the Xbox One's reveal the failure of the Xbox One and connect had a very negative effect on the Xbox brand especially when Xbox went from the highs of the 360 to the lows of the Xbox one I've seen a few posts and comments fantasizing about how different things would be if Phil Spencer had taken over instead of Don matrick if the Xbox never shifted its focus to connect and the Xbox One reveal wasn't a complete disaster as even a decade later some of the effects can be felt to this day I

Channel: Onwards and Upwards

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Length: 11min 37sec (697 seconds)

Published: Mon May 27 2024