Xbox officially lost in the land of confusion

It’s no secret that the Xbox – after more than a decade of mistakes, failures, mismanagement and disappointment – is now officially going through a transformation phase, even if to what exactly is not yet quite clear. Microsoft is still going through the motions, trying to convince everyone that it’s not out of the race when it comes to dedicated gaming console hardware, but one can’t help but feel that this is the exact same approach the company took over the last two years when it comes to its gaming software.

As a reminder, here’s how that went: knowing that it would face considerable backlash if it just announced it’s going multiformat instead of focusing on Xbox, Microsoft only started dropping hints here and there about its new strategy at first. It went on like that for a bit, then “tested the waters” with a few older Xbox hits on PlayStation and Switch, did not officially announce anything on the matter for some time… and then started going all-out with the multiformat release of once-exclusive flagship Xbox franchises. Whether that approach actually helped Microsoft is debatable, as it proved an unpopular one anyway.

What we’re seeing these days is like that, only worse: Microsoft has been sending mixed signals to both consumers and its business partners regarding its future hardware plans – as well as regarding the future of Xbox as a platform and brand – for some time now. But after the company’s most recent “Xbox” announcement, there was a number of editorial pieces questioning the rationale behind this approach, with a couple of ex-Microsoft executives also weighing in to openly express frustration and disappointment.

Laura Fryer, for instance – one of Microsoft Game Studios’ first employees and former Xbox Advanced Technology Group director – posted the following video on the matter.

The notable thing here is that not only is Laura Fryer a true games industry veteran, she also knows exactly what she’s talking about when it comes to Xbox in particular. Yours truly remembers her in a couple of Xbox events and E3 showings during the mid-2000s, being an advocate for a strong Xbox platform but also a knowledgeable, candid executive one could actually have meaningful conversations with. She’s been there from the start and she’s clearly paid attention to what’s been happening at Microsoft over the last decade or so, which is why she’s not mincing words about the company’s current position and future plans.

During this video – which is definitely worth a watch in its entirety – Fryer explains why the concept of original, bespoke Xbox hardware is on its way out. As some of us have long suspected when it became clear that the Xbox Series S/X would not succeed against the PS5, Microsoft seems unwilling to implicate itself in the process of system design and console manufacturing again. It would rather leave that to partners like Asus or MSI instead, providing a “blueprint” of how a future Xbox should work in terms of both software and hardware.

Yours truly thinks that Microsoft could still offer an expensive, high-end Xbox model as a flagship “prime example”, of sorts, but there will most probably be no mainstream, affordable Xbox console a la Series S from the company moving forward. The much-discussed, practically confirmed now, future handheld Xbox may end up replacing the entry-level home console, still manufactured by Microsoft’s partners.

If Microsoft is indeed planning to depend on Windows for gaming, then that “hardware outsourcing” strategy is valid. By not disclosing it though – as that would ground the sales of current Xbox systems to a halt, delivering another big blow to the Xbox brand – the company is risking more than it probably thinks it does. Keeping Xbox fans in the dark is buying Microsoft some time, but this lack of transparency may also lead to further consumer disappointment and eventual indifference. By the time the company decides to announce what it wants to do with the Xbox as a platform, the Xbox community may just not care anymore. It is that simple.

A confused brand in search of direction

Microsoft’s plans are in terms of future Xbox hardware need to be examined in the context of what it plans to do in terms of software… and that is another failure in communication on the company’s part. For about a year we were all supposed to get comfortable with the idea of Microsoft becoming one of the largest multiformat games publishers in the world, broadening the audience of Xbox output in the process. To accept that the company, after all those acquisitions, would be focusing on three things going forward: ship great games, make tons of money from established franchises and go for higher Game Pass subscription numbers.

Well, all right then. Nonsense like “This is an Xbox” aside, if we are to lose the only platform holder capable of providing PlayStation with meaningful competition, we may as well lose it to a great games publisher laser-focused on quality software and services. Not ideal, not a total loss either. But then there was this announcement of a next-gen Xbox console coming in the future… and the suggestion that Windows will be leveraged for that.

One can see why this did not go down well with many people, like Mike Ybarra, a former 20-year Microsoft exec who happened to also serve as vice president on Xbox Live and Xbox Game Pass. Here’s what he tweeted:

This is a polite but no less direct way of telling any company that it has already failed in its mission, in terms of both short-term tactics and long-term strategy. “You are confused” or “Pick your lane and stick to it”? For people like Ybarra – who may be out of the game nowadays but worked towards Xbox’s success for many years – that is as public an expression of frustration and disappointment as one can reasonably expect.

It’s a sad state of affairs, to be sure, but it’s difficult to tell nowadays: has Microsoft been working on a masterplan in order to make an impressive comeback or has it no plan at all, actually, just reacting to failure in different ways and hoping for the best? That surely can’t be the case, right…? Right?

What if there is no actual plan for Xbox moving forward?

At this point one simply has to entertain the possibility that Microsoft does not have a clear vision for Xbox. That the company has no idea what this brand is supposed to stand for in 3 or 5 or 10 years from now. Depending on one’s point of view, all this may sound implausible, naive or even insulting. Sadly, it also seems rather likely.

What Phil Spencer and his team have to work with does not leave much room for optimism. Their console business has been such a failure that Microsoft leadership – focused on cloud services, AI and the enterprise nowadays – probably wants as little to do with it as possible. Those costly acquisitions have to make their money back at some point, but that would lead to a strong focus on the most popular games, taking away resources from titles bringing more variety to Game Pass. An expensive Windows-based Xbox console, meanwhile, would not be easy to market against Linux-based ones or even traditional PCs without bringing a number of impressive competitive advantages to the table. It’s a tough one.

The problem is that Microsoft – based on its track record over the last 15 years – does not seem capable of solving this puzzle in a way that’s beneficial to everyone: to consumers, to its business partners and to itself. The company’s executives have been making unfortunate choices on so many things, for so long, that it’s difficult to see how they will suddenly start making the right ones under even more pressure.

The video embedded above, which Gaming Bolt published on this topic, touches more on the massive layoffs Microsoft just announced, but “the dark cloud hanging over the company and its gaming division” is what we’re talking about here: the plethora of past mistakes that make the Xbox’s prospects look anything but promising.

The only sure way to fix this mess would be to start on a clean slate, which would mean leaving the Xbox brand – or, at the very least, what it used to stand for – behind. Which is where, ultimately, Laura Fryer’s disappointment and Mike Ybarra’s frustration, let alone the anger of Xbox fans, comes from: it shouldn’t have come to this. This was, at one point or another, totally avoidable. Maybe it still is, but it’s just not clear how.

Here’s hope that Microsoft can get its head in the game before the Xbox becomes an empty shell of a brand, marking one of the most spectacular – and expensive – failures in the history of modern entertainment. After 25 years of trying, it would deserve better than that, no?