A post-mortem of Xbox or: how $3 trillion can’t buy you love – Reader’s Feature
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One reader believes Microsoft’s days as a console manufacturer are effectively over and has a theory for where he thinks they went wrong. Well, what a week it’s been for Xbox. We’ve had claims, by a notoriously pro-Microsoft insider, that the era of Xbox exclusives is over, then the head Microsoft saying he’s ‘redefining’ what it means to be an Xbox fan (he probably meant that to sound like a good thing, but it doesn’t), and then reports about the Xbox Series X being quietly withdrawn from sale in Europe. Oh, and US sales were down 29% last month, just before Christmas.
![[Fable trailer screenshot]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/SEI_233446748-dfc4.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
Short of a meteorite dropping on Xbox HQ I’m not sure it could’ve got much worse than that. But then we had a story about how analysts think there’s no longer room for three console formats and that it’s either PlayStation or Xbox that’s going to get pushed out. I don’t think you have to be a PlayStation zealot to think that maybe that’s going to be Xbox losing out.
![[Xbox on a phone from a new TV advert]](https://metro.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/SEI_229719803-983b.jpg?quality=90&strip=all&w=646)
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think any of this is good news. Sony needs strong competition to stop them taking advantage, but I don’t think Microsoft has offered that since the Xbox 360 era. And even then only for two or three years, until Sony caught up with them and suddenly all Microsoft cared about was Kinect.
