Console War Over Declares Phil Spencer or is the Xbox over for some (NEW News)

You may or may not of seen that when spoke to at a GeekWire Summit, Phill Spencer was asked about the "Console War" and basically he says Sony has a huge lead which will be hard to catch up and he goes on to say outside of USA & UK the Xbox One doesn't have a huge presence and that they have to work on this with getting the messaged across of what the Xbox One can do and are focused on growing there market & there games coming then beating Sony.

What do you guys think, to me I want MS to want to beat Sony which to me means better games and vice-versa, competition can only be a good thing.

It does feel like this "generation" has been rather clear cut, there's been too few game changers for the landscape to change, all 3 companies but their product out from the start and have just stuck with it and to be honest I don't see it changing with the next set of consoles unless someone comes along with a big innovation.

Well, there are two sides to this.


On the one hand, there's something in what you say Mas. Competing companies are likely to do one of two things to one-up their rivals: produce better-quality products at better prices, or try to hoodwink the consumer. Both are possible, both have been tried in gaming, but I've always felt that some competition in the market is better than none, in the hope that this will make manufacturers strive for greater things.

On the other hand... I find it hard to care about competition between Sony and MS. Both because I don't play on them, and because they're so similar anyway after the ditching of Kinect. Bar a fistful of exclusives, most developers' games will be tailored to work with both. 1080p 60fps wars rage, showing the sort of trivialities that gamers are forced to turn to to differentiate between the BBoPs. I don't see niche VR products making much of a difference either.

And Nintendo needs to compete with itself, quite frankly. Whether or not it's part of the "console war", it'll be doing things differently, but it needs to do them better. I don't think the "lack of console war" is going to stop them trying to... well, just regain a reasonable industry position, never mind "win".

The biggest victim of a "console war" is common sense. I'd love to see a bit more sanity among fans. But frankly, I don't think that'll happen, regardless of what Mr. Spencer says and does. (Example: Sega went under long ago, and you still get the odd nut supporting them. )


So I'm probably anti-console war overall. Do I think the console war has stopped because of what Phil said? Heck no. Even if Sony has "won" this generation, MS will continue fighting, Nintendo has no choice but to continue fighting, and the requisite sets of fanboys will slug it out to the last.

I do think the whole console war is silly but I own all three systems, if I only had a XBONE for instance then I might be more inclined to go it's so much better as it has had all these exclusives this year & has the cloud dude, but I don't, I just care about games and that's where the competition part comes in as last gen 360 was dominating over the PS3 but with time and better exclusives games of real quality the PS3 passed the 360 as MS rested on there laurels. The same thing could happen again but is unlikely.

The thing is there is there is only so much market share that Nintendo may need a big innovation to claw anything back.

While there's truth in what he said (that it might be really tough to catch Sony) I reckon he's said this to feed Sony's ego who are known to rest on their laurels when they have a good lead.

Did they really rest on there laurels during the PS1 or PS2 (did to me but most will say otherwise), and PS3 they were playing catch up.

Yeah PS4 this year certainly but if you look at next year it should be game after game.

I was a 360 guy last gen but I'm leaning towards a PS4 (probably next year), and while a lot of that is down to SHENMUE 3 OMFGZZZ etc. etc., I like that there is the Uncharted collection, and the re-release of The Last of Us, for those who missed out on the PS3. Gears and Halo just hold no interest to me, and I smashed through the first 3 Gears games on Insane. In a strange way, I've almost grown out of those sort of games. I'm gravitating towards the more mature adventure games. Hell, even the one sports game I play each year (PES) is superior on PS4 thanks to added editing abilities. The ONLY thing that I love about Xbox is the achievements, but that's largely down to 9 years of accumulated gamerscore that'll be but a mere memory soon.

The only thing is the 300 quid pricetag, which I still find to be a lot of money. Especially as I'm on my fourth 360 - I want a current gen console to actually work in five years time. I know PS3s had problems with them, but nothing on the scale of Xbox 360s. For those who do have a PS4/Xbox One, are they reliable from your experience? Any crashing or games freezing? I've not heard anything yet.

I've had my PS4 since launch no issues, a mate at work has sent back his XBONE that is all I know.

masofdas wrote:

Did they really rest on there laurels during the PS1 or PS2 (did to me but most will say otherwise), and PS3 they were playing catch up.

I didn't say they always do it just that they have been known to be really arrogant in similar situations.

Certainly at the PS3 announcement.

Both companies are still in it and I expect them both to bring out new consoles - or console-like devices - for the next generation, so I would say 'no'. What he might mean is that he feels able to declare that Sony have won this round of the console war.

That's what he means this generation is over in the terms of "winning".

I feel this is the best place to put this as it's sort of related and news'ish.

This is what MS announced was coming back in early January for there 2016 line-up:

   Gears of War 4 (Xbox One) – Multiplayer beta in Spring 2016/Launch in Fall 2016
   Quantum Break (Xbox One) – April 5, 2016
   Halo Wars 2 (Xbox One & Windows 10) – Fall 2016
   Crackdown 3 (Xbox One) – Multiplayer in Summer 2016
   Fable Legends Open Beta (Xbox One & Windows 10) – Spring 2016
   ReCore (Xbox One & Windows 10) – 2016
   Sea of Thieves (Xbox One & Windows 10) – 2016
   Gigantic (Xbox One & Windows 10) – 2016
   Killer Instinct: Season 3 (Xbox One & Windows 10) – March 2016
   Gears of War: Ultimate Edition (Windows 10) – Spring 2016
   Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition (Xbox One & Windows 10) – Spring 2016
   Cobalt (Xbox One, Xbox 360 & Steam) – Feb. 2, 2016  

Nine of those 12 games are also on/ or going to be on PC, now this week Quantum Break has been announced to have it's own Xbox One bundle, if you preorder the game and get the day one edition you'll get a code for 360 games Alan Wake & American Nightmare.

That sounds good to me, well the big news is QB is now coming to PC as well meaning 10 of those 12 games (I got feeling Crackdown 3 was announced for PC as well) you don't need a Xbox One for.

I predicted in the 2016 prediction thread QB will flop commercially as Alan Wake only did 1.34m on a huge install-base of the 360, that QB has been in development for a long time & all that live action stuff must of cost a fair bit of dollar.

That bringing to PC makes sense even if Alan Wake only sold 70k copies on PC (but was 2 years later) but it coming to PC has caused outrage amongst Xbox fans.

There's a tweet going around from a famous YouTuber (from what I gather) who tweeted Phill Spencer, saying that MS lied in January on what formats QB would be coming on and that this YouTuber has canceled there predorder. Phill replied back to him so you canceled your preorder of a game you wanted to play and now more people get the opportunity to play the game.

Phill get's a reply back on how he's killing Xbox, now your thinking this is just one guy but nope there loads and Xbox fan sites etc calling for Phill's head as he's taking the Xbox brand in the wrong direction as why get a Xbox One when you can play all it's games including it's exclusives on PC.

I see can see both points Phill's being we spend loads of money on these games let's expand are audience and more people can enjoy are games. But on the Xbox One side, I sold my Xbox One as back when I did my Anticipated games coming for 2016, when I did the platform ones the games could be pure, console, platform or timed exclusive and with Xbox it gave me 18 games to narrow down to a Top 10.

There was some great games and at the time Scalebound even but I noticed then that something like 75% were on PC as well, I don't know if my laptop will run QB (was XBO only at the time of my video) but likes of We Happy Few that's no problem that I sold my Xbox One as why keep it for like 4 games.

That I can see the point of the die hard fans as if you were looking to buy a Xbox One, PS4 or PC now, why get a Xbox One.

A lot of Xbox One owners I know don't actually care about the exclusive games and just gone from 360 to ONE and the ONE is still out pacing the 360 but it's interesting this backlash yet again that MS can't seem to win over the fans be it from the unveiling to now going more towards PC.

The next Xbox could be very interesting if the ONE has left a sour taste, I wouldn't actually bet against it and Windows 11 or whatever just run the same games.  

What's your thoughts guys, I know your not all Xbox fans but maybe imagine if Nintendo started bringing there games to PC as well as NX.

I prefer to play games on a console. I like the games on Xbox.

I know you do and I prefer playing games on a console and these "fans" like Xbox games we think and I do like myself, there's just not a enough of them to warrant owning a Xbox One for me and I don't think anyone is disputing the Xbox games.

What there saying is Xbox games should be on Xbox, hence why I used Nintendo as example, if you could get there games on a PC would you buy there console, I gather for most of us would be a yes.

But it's interesting to see a 1st party not staying exclusive to there console.

For me the blame (balme?) must lie at the hands of the fact that it is now so expensive to develop triple-A games. You have to recoup those costs somehow; if there's a way to do so without really betraying the brand (or so you'd think), you do it. In terms of business sense for the developer, I can only agree with it. In terms of building a games library that is exclusive to XBox One, which makes the console more appealing to consumers, which makes other developers want to put their games out for it, which makes the console more appealing to consumers, etc., it's not what you're wanting.

Greatly summed up Zero, also these hardcore Xbox fans that are losing there minds all ready have a Xbox One they should just play and enjoy the games that come to it then moaning someone on PC can now also play some quality titles.

I reckon Mr Sterling is bound to talk about this on his next Jimquisition as it's the sort of thing he likes to talk about.

The difference is that Nintendo's game developers are working so tightly with the console manufacturing guys. The machine and the games have a very symbiotic relationship, which I don't think is the case elsewhere. Microsoft build the machines and post them out to their lads at the studios they own.

It's just so bizarre that folk get so attached to a game that they usually haven't even played being exclusive it's not like a game being on another format dilutes it in any way, so Phil Spencer is on the money with his reply & Microsoft releasing games on pc & Xbox is hardly a new thing.

I hadn't noticed that it was happening, or that there was an uproar about it, until Mas posted. People on the internet, y'know...

It's all over my twitter (I do follow to many people), Drunka and Nintendo was just a example I know what your saying but I was hust trying to uses something similar an d what would someone like Zero feel if we told him Zelda U is on PC as well.

I think for Joe Public it's not a issue but Push Square for instance latched on to it and did a article on why Sony won't bring there games to PC.

Also I don't know how true this is but some of these "fans" are allegedly going to sue Microsoft for false advertising by misleading them on what's exclusive for the Xbox One.

Fans suing Microsoft? That'll be like bringing a water pistol to a tank party. Unless they've got some super rich backers... I wouldn't put it past Donald Trump to get involved, somehow.

Yep and we seen what happens when playing MGSV

There was a MS Spring Event which Phill Spencer confirmed a few things and going forward nearly all of MS games will come out on PC & Xbox at the same time also Phill wants to scrap the whole generation thing, instead upgraded consoles like with other devices and there games will be similar to how on on PC if if I'm playing on a Xbox One 1 and one of you are playing on a Xbox One 2, I would get on low settings and you would get mid settings.

Not sure on whole upgrade thing and a studio outside of MS there self's wanting to make a game for various specs.

That sounds like Microsoft want to gradually blend Xbox in to PC gaming, which makes sense given how popular the PS4 is. I can see console gamers being Sony-centric, with Nintendo having the retro/hardcore crowd as well as families, and Microsoft using the Xbox brand in the PC scene. I genuinely can't see there being a need for a PS5 AND another Xbox, when they are so similar.

Good shout, g. Besides, they'll be struggling to name the next XBox, mathematically speaking. Given that they went from 360 to One, it'll either be the XBox -358 or the XBox 1/360.

Neither of them will catch on.