And you don’t think that had much to do with Xbox’s success? People like to romanticize the Xbox 360 but let’s keep it real. Sony fukked up. They caught themselves and course corrected and by the end of that generation it was a wash. That was also the generation that did the legwork for the sorts of first party games Sony is famous for now.
Some of the Switch’s most popular games are Wii U games. Wii U had quality games and failed. Post GameCube Nintendo consoles have been the home for shovelware. Lately some of the most popular third party games skip them entirely. New GTA games, Madden, CoD, the list goes on.
If anything Nintendo is the success they are now because they leveraged their portable into a home console and before that it was motion control gimmicks. None of their success is even remotely close to anything modern PlayStation is doing. The two couldn’t be further apart. This is why you’ll see known PS fanboys on this site owning a Switch. How many of them owned Wii Us?
Xbox needs to separate itself from what PlayStation does. The world doesn’t need the same product again like that.
If Sony can course correct itself as well as Nintendo, I think Microsoft can as well. They have no showpiece games that like you said makes them standout. Nintendo does. Sony does. When I think Nintendo I think of Mario, Zelda, Smash Bros, Animal Crossing, and Pokemon.
The other exclusives are just the cherry on top. Even when Sony started to gain traction near the tail end of the 7th generation, Xbox 360 was still strong despite Sony's upcoming reign.
The marketing of the XB1 prior to launch really did them in along with the fact that it cost more than the PS4 while being weaker. Imagine had XB1 released at $399 with no talks of a camera being a requirement for access and no 24-hour online check in fiasco? They just completely lost the script and started to pivot a little towards games(which should've been the main focus all along) and satisfied their hardcore fanbase with the backwards compatibility thing and Gamepass.
I think had Xbox did this(it's easy to say in hindsight though to be fair), they'd be in a much better position. So far with the Series X I feel like they can still turn things around as it's relatively early in the gen so far. Same way some hardcore Xbox fans here despite all the noise STILL bought a PS5 in spite of all their issues with Sony. I feel like MSFT can really turn things around by 2024~2025 at the latest.
