And come to think of it, is Xbox relevant anymore?
I won't say that PS will monopolize the market or anything, BUT these consoles are a bit of a glorified mid spec PC, having played the thing at a friend's house we found little to no point in half the features it's got (playing Titanfall and BF4 there is a sense that things like voice recognition and internet explorer are redundant, we were checking FAQs and Facebook over our own notebooks, laptops and heck I was on the vita, my friend was using his Galaxy and he had to force some of the interconnected feature to stop alerts popping up).
Sure the Xbox has some exclusives and that might justify the investment, that said the Xbox One lacks in many regards, We just keep playing on BF4 on my PC to reduce some of the nuances of that the XB1 interface throw at us, and that kinda says it all, my friends have been loyal to the brand since ... Halo 1 and this is the first time I've seen them really considering getting a PC or a PS4.
And that pretty much says it all, their jaw literally dropped when we played FFXIV, they could play it on the vita so they could still side quest and everything while we were still levelling up in BF4, or while we were messing around in YT or the 360. Then they saw some of my games in the Steam library and pretty much got stuck to them (yeah, Planetside 2 got a huge impact on them, same for FC3 on PC and Metro 2033 which looked really gorgeous).
And then is when I realized that MS is not having a good moment, my friends have been playing on Xbox for nearly 12 years now and they got fed of both GoW series and Halo series once 3 and 4 (respectively) were released. PS4 turns out to be cheaper (and to some extend better value because of the indies released for it, and some frebies for premium services, and the ability to play free games without having to have a premium subscription) and look more convenient for them, while a gaming PC is shaping to have a better value/content ratio.
So I wonder, who is this console exactly for? I know is not for 12 year olds anymore because they grew up and got bored of COD and Halo games, Is not anymore for casual gamers because it's really short on content and it's exclusives aren't that great, it isn't for hardcore gamers because a halfway decent PC can perform just as well without some of the inconveniences and PS4 already presents a more simplistic design apart from being tad more powerful, and it might be for fans ... which is what my friends used to be and they are now seriously considering selling the thing.
I won't say MS will be finished, but their conception of the new xbox at it's core is far too off from what they old one used to be, like Sony in 2006 which went pretty arrogant and that cost them dearly, here is about the same situation but 3 or 4 times more expensive for each company, Sony gambled on a more simplistic design with a simple idea (which IMO is working so far) while xbox wanted to push a centric system for everything in an era where smartphones are starting to become more convenient for social interaction than computers, and TVs have become computers themselves.
I want this to fail simply because is not a good system, Sega had the freaking Dreamcast which was a sneak peak of the future yet it flop for stupid decisions, I don't expect that but I do expect them to come with something new like a new console or something with a complete different focus (kind of like what the wii was, only more ...hardcore).
I'm not American and I'm not in US, but I can't see why anyone outside the US is willing to pay for premium services (which is a must for the X1 if you want to have some degree of basic functionality) for a thing that is barely functional outside the US, when stuff like affordable GFX, Steamboxes and PS4 are around, it might do decently in the US, but is a globalized market now, both Nintendo and Sony know what their doing and MS lost their way, either by greed or bad decisions but these times are not as forgiving as older ones, and it might just bring them to think in a new way to hold that business afloat once this generation transition is complete and the main game market shifts to the next gen games, devices and peripherals.
Great job by Microsoft, they really want to make the Xbox One the console you want and this is a step in the right direction. A baby step, but a step.
