A Lack of First-Party Titles
Without a doubt the biggest mistake Microsoft can make this year is a lack of exclusive releases from its first-party studios. 2017 was definitely a slow year for the Xbox One in terms of first-party content, with only Halo Wars 2, Forza Motorsport 7, and Cuphead headlining the console, alongside some smaller releases. This is especially troubling considering the Xbox One X launched with such little support from Microsoft itself. Sure there were plenty of great third-party titles on the system, but in a year where Sony had Horizon Zero Dawn and Uncharted and Nintendo had Zelda and Mario, Microsoft was definitely lagging behind.
This puts the company in a prime position to really knock things out of the park in 2018, with some quality exclusives that really show off the power of the Xbox One X. We know about a few exclusives at the moment, but many of them are indie projects that haven’t really been sharing development updates in quite a while, like Ashen, Deep Rock Galactic, and State of Decay 2. Meanwhile, Sea of Thieves certainly looks promising enough and hopefully sees a return to form for Rare, however, Crackdown 3 doesn’t inspire a ton of confidence. The game has seen a rocky development cycle including several delays, and even to this point, there’s a lot that’s unknown or up in the air about the game, and we still haven’t heard much about the cloud processing for destruction, outside of it only applying to the multiplayer portion of the game.
On top of this, recent reports indicate 343 is hinting that we won’t see a Halo 6 this year, begging the question, what is coming in 2018? That’s something that Microsoft is going to need to address, and soon. Not putting out a wealth of content that shows off its powerful new console would be a fatal mistake.
Lackluster Press Conferences and Announcements
Going hand-in-hand with having new releases is the press conferences and presentations scattered throughout the year at events like E3, or even just Microsoft’s own announcements. With Sony’s big exclusives like God of War and the Nintendo Switch’s impressive momentum, the conversation around gaming isn’t really focused on Microsoft. That’s something they need to fix.
Microsoft needs to go all-out at the big events of the year with impressive announcements, new features, additions to their backward compatibility, and more. They really need to wow fans with these events, but also with announcements throughout the year. Unfortunately, even with the release of the Xbox One X, the conversation and momentum just aren’t with Microsoft at the moment. This doesn’t doom the company and the Xbox by any means, but it does mean that they need to come out a little stronger than the competition this year. Small steps are starting to be made, for example, we found out that Xbox One sold better than PS4 in the month of December according to a Microsoft exec, although we don’t have exact sales figures yet. Microsoft needs to continue to give everyone a reason to talk about Xbox, give everyone a reason to be excited about it, and most importantly a reason to buy an Xbox One X.
Not Pushing Xbox One X
The Xbox One X was a huge undertaking for Microsoft, and no doubt cost a lot of money to invest in. Microsoft is going to want to double down on its marketing on the Xbox One X, taking every opportunity it can to boast about its powerful new console. This means taking time with every press conference, putting out loads of ads and commercials, and getting third-party developers to work on Xbox One X support.
The PS4 has sold significantly more than the Xbox One at this point, almost double in fact. With these numbers, Sony doesn’t need to focus on the PS4 Pro, simply adding it to the PlayStation family of systems with moderate marketing, and letting the games speak for themselves is enough. It’s a little different with the Xbox One X, since Microsoft spent so long hyping the system up. The worst thing it could do would be to just let the Xbox One X sit as another iteration of the Xbox One, causing the systems to blend together for consumers. They need to specify at every point what makes the One X unique, what makes it a system you want to own. It’s a hard road to tread, because Microsoft needs to make clear why the Xbox One X is special, but also make sure owners of the regular Xbox One don’t feel like they’re getting burned for being an early adopter or simply opting for the cheaper One S.
Perhaps Microsoft could partner with the manufacturers of 4K TVs, combine its message with that of why 4K content is so much better, maybe even put out a few bundles with specific TVs. Microsoft is always pretty tight-lipped about sales numbers except for when they’re at the top, but at this point, it looks like the Xbox One X sales have gone above everyone’s expectations. With the console’s first full year now starting out, it’s the time to really put stuff out there and broadcast the message for Xbox One X.
More Cancellations and Delays
Something that Microsoft needs to avoid at all costs is the cancellation of any more of its big projects and games. There’s already so little in the way of exclusives on the horizon (that we know about), and having anything else canceled would be an incredibly bad look. This even includes cancellations of rumored projects, something that of course is hard to avoid with the rumor mill, but nevertheless needs to be thought about.
With Scalebound and Fable Legends both getting canceled within the last two years, and Crackdown 3 seeing several delays, there’s not a ton of confidence around Microsoft’s first-party development. Of course, we have no idea how troubled these developments really were, and exactly why they were canceled, but in the eyes of the fans, it’s certainly not good. Microsoft needs to make sure things aren’t announced too early, that we don’t see them in an early concept stage to the point where it’s a completely different game upon release, or cancellation. Hopefully, this is something we’ll see improve in the future as last August Shannon Loftis, general manager for Microsoft Studios Publishing, said announcing Crackdown 3 so early was a “mistake.” Give us timely announcements, logical timelines for release, and just more communication on these games in general would go a long way in inspiring confidence in Xbox fans. If there do happen to be any leaks or reports of cancellations too, Microsoft needs to address those immediately.
