Xbox is over?

 

What makes a brand? What special piece of twisting logic defines the intangibility of recognisable icons across a commercial industry, that places steel wings on the lapels of the shoulders of the army of capitalism? What indeed! For me, I would say it is 'identity'. Identity is the means through which individuality is denote, under which worth and distinction is built, and without which purpose and belief is left to rot and fade. We build brands with powerful identities that can stand the test of competition, and the grand brands cement into household staples, irrevocable from the property itself, whilst the watery flitter and warp in flux, constantly vying for a glimpse of attention and notoriety with a new face or a twisted reimagination there. Lasting brands are strong, they are unbending, they have a will and spine of mountainous bedrock. And they, it is becoming clear, share little in common with modern Xbox.

Xbox has for a very long time been one of the fathers of the modern video game landscape, helping to shape the solid position within which console gaming still finds itself in the 2020's. With the 'Direct X' Box launch came a new era of casual games with accessible online features and co-op functionality that birthed the party game social aspect of gaming that we've all apparently decided to weed out over the decades since. In that time Xbox gathered quite a solid brand out of itself with monoliths like Master Chief from the Halo franchise wearing the consoles colours and defining multiplayer games all the way until COD 4 came out. Gears of War was quite a strong showing too, creating a standard for 3rd person shooters we're still trying to unilaterally evolve from. And Rare. They became an Xbox standard too after being unceremoniously brought off by the green X and raised by the proverbial wolves over there. These are the backbone of the house 'Xbox'.

Of course the very reason I bring them up is to contrast them with their blue-flavoured alters- Rachet and Clank, Uncharted, The Last of Us, God of War- franchises of unending appeal and acclaim that transcended the borders and became widely celebrated. What else are they all? Exclusive to the Sony console for as long as they can manage. Sony jealously squeeze the absolute life out of exclusivity to the point of actively sabotaging the potential success of some of their less than award winning titles like 'Days Gone'. But you know what? It works. People know you can't get Spider-Man anywhere else. Or Final Fantasy 16. So they flock to Playstation and associate those brilliant, industry-leading experiences to the Sony brand. Suddenly 'Sony Original' becomes synonymous with 'quality'- and where does that leave the perception of modern Xbox?

Well they try a lot, don't they? They tried to get their very own Bethesda smash-hit just like Skyrim and ended up with Starfield- a game that wasn't really what their fanbase wanted for all of it's quality achievements and failures. Halo Infinite managed to successfully translate the franchise to an open world format, but failed to push the story forward to any meaningful degree. (Also, it's going to fail to live up to it's Live-Service inspired naming convention as the team are already moving onto a sequel rather than building their sequel into the Halo Infinite template like they originally intended to.) The Initiative tried to rewrite the book on quality high-budget game development with their debut game 'Perfect Dark' (Remake) and that mess of a product hasn't be heard of since it's announcement- so a development hell-bound disaster no doubt. Xbox is the studio of attempts.

And nowhere is that more evident then with recent leaks about their upcoming attempt wherein Xbox are essentially throwing in the towel and killing the brand of Xbox after all these years. Which is not to say that they're retiring the X- at least not yet- but they are surrendering everything that makes the name 'Xbox' significant in the gaming space- they're handing out their exclusives to Sony. Yes, that means we're going to see Starfield, Sea of Thieves and probably Gears of War make their way over the fence to the otherside of the battlefield- pretty much white-flag in hand as Microsoft settles into selling their products to their direct competitor And after this- well, what's really the point of an Xbox anymore? Multimedia functionality? The console will just become a more expensive Blueray player- and the value of the brand will hit a zero.

Without any ounce of hyperbole- this is about the single most 'short term' move Xbox could make if they intend to grow the brand of Xbox. Because sure- they'll be able to reduce their costs and make passive money off of licencing their brand, but then guess-what: Xbox branded games will have nothing to compete with over Playstation games than their quality. Right now, Xbox Studio games have the lure of exclusivity to stick out to purchasers- Xbox owners buy these games knowing that they won't exist elsewhere. Once they do start hopping over the iron curtain, then what are gamers going to buy? 7/10 Starfield or 9/10 Spider-Man 2? Xbox games have yet to reach that level of quality to sell on their own merits- Xbox is about to devalue not only it's own brand but the products they intend to sell through their licensing!

And what happens then? Do the studios under Microsoft just sit back and watch as their games slowly become overshadowed on other competitors platforms? Maybe they will, or maybe they'll get a bit disquiet and end up seeking ways to break up their partnerships and go solo- reasoning a better chance on their own, funding themselves, than labelled with the stigma of the Xbox brand. Without the quality of being on the big three backing their brand, the Xbox label will come to mean nothing. Tell me, do you care about the new Crazy Taxi that Sega is making beyond a passing rush of nostalgia? No, because Sega is just another developer. They don't make consoles or unique ecosystems anymore- you can pick up their games for cheap on a third-party key sellers website if you really want to. That is the fate facing Xbox right now.

It is such a shame to see the dissolution of a brand of gaming royalty. Like watching a dynasty burn whilst everyone stands around the moat with their shoulders shrugged. And all of us with our Xbox's wondering what the future pertains to for us? Well, I think we should be justified in being a little worried. Perhaps not as worried as we would all have to be if Google owned the brand, (god forbid) but I can definitely see a lot of history on the line when this new era of the Xbox company is put into effect. I just hope the damage is seen before the act is irreversible, because god knows we don't need a games industry with a monopoly lead by the Live Service obsessed cretins who somehow convinced the world that games need to be $70 in order for developers to be paid a fair wage. (Newsflash: they're the multi million hoarding creeps who cut the damn cheques- they could charge $200 for every new game and developers would still be living off foodstamps- you're fighting the wrong battle!)