Don Mattrick fully earned his place in the bad video game executive hall of fame. People remember the various ways in which the Xbox One launch was botched, ranging from the confusing and ahead of its time in a bad way DRM, compounded by Mattrick’s condescending “if you don’t have reliable Internet just play your 360” comments, and, of course, the Kinect. Microsoft built the system and its marketing around a mandatory peripheral that didn’t work and that it never had any compelling software for. And one that spied on you to boot! It was an ill considered approach worthy of Sega at its peak 32X stupidity.

What people don’t remember as much is that the back half of the Xbox 360, when it lost its advantage to Sony and ended up in close to a dead heat after dominating the first half of the generation, was almost as bad. The Kinect was a cool idea but it was expensive and never worked outside a few very specific applications. It was the kind of thing that looked amazing in commercials and was extremely disappointing for everyone who used it outside a small core of tech obsessives who are willing to put up with extreme jank. And yet Microsoft focused on this thing almost exclusively in the back half of its best generation, pushing it relentlessly with massive marketing campaigns and focusing most software development on it. The Xbox 360 almost abandoned exclusives at the time that third parties came to understand the PS3 architecture and were putting out equal ports (nullifying the 360’s chief advantage) and Sony’s exclusive output had evolved from Heavenly Sword to The Last of Us.

Then Xbox took that crappy peripheral and built their next system around it, jacking up the price $100 and cutting corners on the hardware that people would use to play the games they actually liked and wanted to play, which Xbox compensated for by not making many games that anyone actually liked and wanted to play.

What people also forget is that in addition to the Kinect the Xbox One was built around TV. Not streaming integration but actual cable TV. The Xbox had a port for an HDMI in, an IR blaster to control your cable box, and the OS featured a “snap” function that let you pin a small TV feed into a vertical bar on the side of your screen so you could have a postage stamp sized picture in picture going as you played. This snap feature came at the cost of using a bunch of Xbox One’s already behind the curve processing power and unlike the Wii U’s ability to toss TV to a tablet it didn’t actually do anything you couldn’t already with the picture in picture function most TVs already have, let alone the plethora of secondary screens people already had in late 2013, well into the age of universal smart phone adoption.

It was an idiotic idea that only someone who profoundly misunderstood entertainment and where it was going could come up with, and Microsoft’s whole team deserves condemnation for pursuing it. The Xbox One was seemingly designed by people who did not like video games and wanted to make their black VCR shaped box do everything under the sun but play them.

So the Xbox One launched at a high price point with a bunch of games with crappy Kinect integration and a reputation for being underpowered and riddled with DRM. Despite a respectable launch lineup that included graphical showpiece Ryse: Son of Rome and the exclusive Dead Rising 3 along with the interesting seasonal fighting game Killer Instinct and a bunch of ports of Madden and COD, it landed in the market crippled. It sold well at first to people hungry for new hardware but soon fell behind PS4 and never threatened to catch up again.

Cleaning up this mess would not be easy and Mattrick would not be the guy to do it. He was quickly moved on to Zynga, a company that made more of the types of games he seemed to like, and the admired Phil Spencer moved up to take his place. Over the next seven years he would unwind all of Mattrick’ big decisions. The Kinect would soon be debundled and then discontinued, a humiliating admission that it had been a terrible idea to begin with, and an experiment that would end without even the suite of fun party software that the 360 version got. Snapping TV onto the screen would be removed from the OS to free up power for games and eventually all TV function including on screen guides would be stripped from the OS. Spencer would oversee a new revision of the console into the Xbox One X, which was very specifically marketed as more powerful than Sony’s PS4 Pro, targeting gamers who wanted performance without buying a PC. Microsoft would triple down on games, adding backwards compatibility for a huge swath of old 360 and original Xbox games, and purchasing new studios to replace the one that Mattrick let atrophy or closed during the Kinect era, when exclusive games had become an afterthought.

Spencer would also pursue a strategy trying to play to Microsoft’s strengths, saving Xbox by moving beyond the Xbox hardware. He would make all Xbox games available on PC, Microsoft’s home platform, pursuing players wherever they were and making Xbox development more economically viable despite a smaller install base. He would also create Game Pass, a service that would attract players to the platform without exclusives by giving them access to the “Netflix of games.” He would oversee close integration of the Xbox controller into the Windows environment, establishing it as the base controller for PC players and making sure that Xbox peripherals remained relevant for players even if they didn’t want to buy an Xbox One. He bought Minecraft and maintained its ubiquitous presence on all platforms instead of killing it by restricting it to Xbox only. He stepped boldly into game streaming before it was really ready, hoping to establish Microsoft in that market before it matured and pursuing entertainment in the direction it was actually going instead of chasing cable TV like it was still 1998.

These steps were all pretty radical and have their critics, but it’s worth noting that Sony has followed almost every part of this plan (though its streaming plans were in place earlier than Xbox’s.) Sony’s games are on PC now, years after Xbox started. Sony has subscription tiers to PlayStation Plus, clearly chasing Game Pass though without Microsoft’s commitment to putting first party games there. The PlayStaiton 5 is backwards compatible, unlike PS4, because the feature was very popular on Xbox One, even if not that many actually used it. PlayStation is still the dominant high powered console but its clear that in some ways Microsoft is the strategic leader, making smart moves that even arrogant Sony feels the need to emulate.

The one area that Microsoft has not managed to turn thins around is in its game production, which remains a mixed bag at best. Despite all of Microsoft’s acquisitions it would continue to struggle putting out top tier games that people wanted to play, where Sony would ascend to the Nintendo tier where every first party game felt like an event. Even Microsoft’s huge older franchises would languish, with Halo going from absolutely dominant shooter to just another franchise putting out games with a mixed reputation. Gears of War would become the last franchise standing in a genre that was well out of fashion. Microsoft would fail to build new big series with games like Recore and Quantum Break being middling successes at best. The only major new franchise established during the Xbox One era would be Forza Horizon, the first of which was a late 360 game, though Microsoft would have a bit more luck with smaller games like the Ori series and its funding of Cuphead, though neither would end up as exclusives. Microsoft’s disastrous performance in Japan would continue to be a massive problem, with the biggest Japanese releases coming to Xbox if there was no deal with Sony, but smaller Japanese games skipping the platform to focus on PlayStation and Switch.

Ultimately you can argue that Xbox has still not recovered from the Xbox One era. Spencer himself has said this, calling the 8^th gen the “worst generation to lose” because of the switch to digital libraries carried over with backwards compatibility. Xbox has also failed to create new must play games despite its massive expansion via studio purchases. Xbox Series continues to languish behind PS5 and you can argue that launching the vastly underpowered Xbox Series S was a strategic mistake, though unlike Kinect and TV integration it was at least a reasonable idea (cheap things remain popular, unlike cable TV.)

But 10 years after the Xbox One launch Xbox continues to be relevant in the industry, having survived one of the worst major company launches in history. This is probably only because of the deep pockets of the parent company, which could bail Xbox out with financial support and studio purchases that a company like Sega didn’t have. Still, there were rumblings of Microsoft abandoning games and spinning off Xbox in the 360 era and coming out of the Xbox One era it has instead doubled down, buying Bethesda and Activision through painful and expensive mergers. Xbox now owns Elder Scrolls and Call of Duty, along with Doom and, of course, Blinx the Time Sweeper.

It's worth noting as well that Xbox One remains a relevant platform in 2023. 10 years after launch it continues to get new games and not just sports games or the cheapest licensed stuff but big new releases. This is primarily because of how easy it is to port games between platforms in 2023, and backwards compatibility meaning that an Xbox One version will run on the Series system, but it’s still impressive. 10 years is an enormous lifespan and when you look at something like the 32X or the Saturn, which barely survived a few years of relevance, having Armored Core and Street Fighter coming out on Xbox One 10 years after its terrible launch definitely shows something. The Xbox One has an astonishingly good library. Not an astonishingly good library of exclusives, but if it was your only console for the last 10 years you’ve had a ton of amazing stuff to play.

Personally the Xbox One is one of my favorite consoles of all time. I bought both Xbox One and PS4 at launch but ended up more of an Xbox gamer. This was both because I had been primarily a 360 gamer (I owned a PS3 but vastly preferred the Xbox 360 controller to the tiny Dual Shock 3) and because my best friend got an Xbox One because PS4s were hard to obtain near launch, so we ended up playing a bunch on Xbox Live together. I also loved the Xbox One X as the most powerful console, and appreciated backwards compatibility. I have a lot of affection for Xbox One and I still use mine to this day. I think the OS is unfairly maligned and the controller somewhat unappreciated. I think the incredible backwards compatibility function that upscales and smooths framerates is almost miraculous. I think Sunset Overdrive is great. But the most impressive thing about Xbox One is how well it has moved on from one of the worst launches in history to become a console that isn’t seen as a disaster. Only the 3DS has ever recovered more successfully. I don’t know what the future holds for Xbox, but the present could be much, much, worse if not for the radical attempts to turn the Xbox One into something that people would actually want to play, as opposed to the KinecTV box it was intended to be.

This is like overeating before going on a diet so you weigh a lot at the first weigh in.

The launch xb1 was so bloated on too many granola bars.

I don't know about this one. The decisions made by Microsoft for the Xbox One launch weren't just bad, they were downright evil. Nobody should have an always-on always-connected camera inside their apartment, especially not by a company that has a long history of privacy and antitrust violation and who is known to cooperate with intelligence agencies, unless they have some sort of a severe exhibitionist kink. And before you say "what about your phone", I hear you, but at least my phone camera is pointed at the ceiling and not at my couch.

Microsoft didn't really do anything for their turnaround. It was more of a thing that they stopped doing the things that everybody hated and dropped the price. They accepted that it's better to limp to the finish line and live to fight another generation rather than go down in flames, and as you noted it was only because of their deep pockets that they were able to do that. I have a Series S that is backwards compatible with the One, which is great, but I can't recall a single Xbox exclusive from the One that I have played on it.

One of Microsoft's, and dare I say perhaps across all industries, biggest PR victories was pinning the whole thing on Mattrick, that they could then fire him like an underperforming football coach, and say that the bad man is gone and everything is fine now. But it doesn't work like that. These decision were not made by Mattrick alone (who was not even the CEO), but a committee of dozens if not hundreds of people. It's possible that Mattrick was against what they were trying to do with the Xbox One but couldn't say no to the board, this is pure speculation on my part but everything about his appearance on that fateful E3 tells me that he had no confidence in the product, he knew he was done for and was just desperately hoping that the industry would give him a pass. It is entirely possible that many people who had their hands on the Xbox One launch are still at Microsoft.

Yeah I dunno... I had both for most of their lifespans and ultimately I sold my Xbox One because it was just never used and I preferred to stay on PS4 most of the time and it kind of ended my entire run of Xbox consoles.

For me its lasting legacy was to give me my go-to controller to use on my PC.

I'd agree that the Xbox did have a really good turn-around. However, two things.

First, I feel like purchasing all these studios hasn't quite paid off in the way they thought it would (and the way everyone else thought it would). They haven't really had a "prestige" game in the same way that Sony has. They don't have a Last of Us or a God of War. I think that game was supposed to be Starfield, but... did you see the meme going around of Starfield winning a made-up "most 7/10 review scores" category? I feel like that sums up the reception to Starfield pretty well. Halo Infinite's multiplayer is in a really good place now, but its single player (which I personally loved because grapple hook) received a lot of criticism. Is Grounded low-key the most well-received Microsoft Studios game of the last few years? Since Ori and the Will O The Wisps?

Second, I don't think that's necessarily what matters to Microsoft at this point. This observation has been made before and Microsoft has said it themselves, but Xbox is better thought of as a service and not specifically a games console. Which is cool and all, but that doesn't seem to be quite panning out either. Phil Spencer can say this all he wants to, but are consumers buying it? Does average Joe see his Xbox Series X as just one avenue to access the Xbox Service, the same way a Roku is one avenue to access Netflix, or does he see his Xbox Series X the same way he sees his PS5? As a console for playing exclusives that, honestly, haven't blown the gaming world away in a long time?

I'm not trying to disagree with your point, I agree with it, Phil Spencer and modern Xbox teams have done a lot to bring back that goodwill the Xbox brand once had. I just don't think we can have this conversation without the addendum "but also they seem like they've still got a ways to go".

@apewins: You're right about others contributing to the Xbox One, which Mattrick took the fall for, but Mattrick had been guiding the Xbox division poorly for years. The whole back half of the 360 generation was pretty bad and Microsoft lost its lead to Sony. When Mattrick left the division turned around to some degree. He also went to Zynga and was bad there. It may be more complicated than "Mattrick bad, Spencer good" but I don't think he was just a fall guy.

Also there are all kinds of spy cameras in our homes now. And Kinect was really more of a spy microphone than camera (since there was never evidence the camera part was passively on, while the mic listened for commands) and we all have a ton of those now. Your phone may not b pointed at your couch but Siri/Alexa are always listening.

I do not agree with your take that Xbox didn't take any positive steps during the One generation though. I already outlined some of them, such as the Play Anywhere, Game Pass, and streaming initiatives. The Xbox One X was also a very good piece of hardware by most standards. Backwards compatibility was pro consumer and well received. They did a lot.

The more specific question of where the games were at is complex. I can name a number of Xbox One exclusives that I think are excellent. Killer Instinct. Sunset Overdrive. The Master Chief Collection patched if you like Halo. Forza Horizon 2-4 (personal favorites.) Cuphead for a time and Ori (which is not exclusive but was Microsoft funded.) Whether you enjoy those games are not is personal preference but the "Xbox has no good games" stuff was way overblown. It's true that the highs on PS4 were higher with stuff like Ghost of Tsushima, Spider-Man, Uncharted 4 and Bloodborne, but for every Recore there is a Knack.

@justin258: The question of how well Microsoft has handled the "Series" console generation is to my mind somewhat different from the Xbox One turnaround. There I agree with you results are mixed, sales aren't great, and Xbox seems to be somewhat floundering. The big studio purchases should be pushing out their exclusives right about now and we're getting stuff like Redfall, which is an embarrassing game. They've done better with smaller stuff like Pentiment and Hi-Fi Rush, but their big games just aren't hitting big.

However I'd say that the best received game of the last few years was Forza Horizon 5. 92 on Metacritic, a full 10 points above Grounded, and everyone seemed to love it.

I love this console a lot, I remember that back in 2014, Forza Horizon 2 and Driveclub both hooked me into Xbox One and PS4, their graphics look amazing, but for their gameplay, they're okay in my opinion these days because I'm not a big fan of arcade-style racing games, well I find the original Assetto Corsa and DiRT Rally are both more suited for me to play.

There were a lot of bad decisions made with the Xbox One, but the most baffling to me will always be the focus on cable TV in an era where cord cutting was already a growing phenomenon (especially among the main video game playing demographics). Like, I can understand why they prioritized kinect integration and wanted to lock down used games. Those were bad decisions, no doubt, but ones you can at least understand what they were doing. But, building in such an emphasis on cable TV integration in 2013 (on a console that would need to last 7+ years) is just monumentally idiotic. I will never understand what they could have possibly been thinking.

I think Sunset Overdrive might be the only AAA (console) exclusive that I really enjoyed and can recall having played on an Xbox platform, which is a bummer. Despite that, I’ve still owned both Xbone One and Xbox One X, as well as Series X now.

Admittedly Series X is a good console and I’ve played (and likely will play) a number of good multiplatform games on it, thanks to both Game Pass and my PC not being that powerful, but it’s still the least used console I own.

The Xbox One was pretty bad I bought it halve way through the generation with low expectations, and still pretty much disliked nearly every first party game. The Series is paying the price for the ills of the XB1 particularly its poor game output.

I remember buying an Xbox One and selling it a year later. It wasn't till the Series S launch that I came back to Xbox and playing what games I missed on Xbox 360/One. I just always hated the size of the Xbox One and it's 500GB hard drive.

For me, the legacy of the Xbox One will always be the console that put Microsoft in a position I don't think they will ever recover from fully. They were coming off the success of the Xbox360, the first time their console surpassed a Sony and Nintendo one, making them the leaders of that era. Instead of building on this, they decided to make a mostly multimedia machine, that gamers didn't ask for, to cater to non-gamers. "Hey guys! Why get a TiVo, when you can get an Xbox One for your streaming needs!". And of course the always online and spy camera, and oppressive security didn't help. Especially, during a time that many people were paranoid about this happening. It was a complete miss in so many ways. And yeah, you can say Microsoft weathered the storm, mainly because they correctly accepted that they will never be able to recover the ground they lost in the console market and decided to focus on stuff like "play our games anywhere" and Game Pass. If not for these things, Microsoft in terms of gaming would've gone the Sega route. The console turning out to be underpowered compared to the PS4, especially as the years went by, also didn't help them.

I still remember the moment they lost the battle before it even started:

The 360 was never ahead of the Wii, and Microsoft had squandered the lead they had over Sony in the second half of the 360's life. By the end they ended up neck and neck, but Sony had all the momentum with their slew of high quality exclusives in the back half of the generation while MS was doing gimmicky kinect nonsense to go along with nothing but Gears, Halo, and Forza from first party.

Even if the Xbox One didn't have all the issues it did, MS was entering the generation from a weakened position. Of course, the Xbox One doubled down on the bad direction and essentially buried the brand in the dirt.

The end of the 360 generation sowed the seeds for the XB1 problems which continue with the Series. The 360 was the best place to play third party titles, and MS relied on COD & FIFA etc being better on 360 with marketing deals and timed exclusive content. MS first party was always pretty poor by the end of the 360 most of the good stuff was from third party deals anyway, MS never built anything lasting.

The XB1 generation started exactly the same way but the XB1 was no longer the best place to play as soon as momentum shifted to Sony, all the marketing & exclusive content went as well. When games start taking 4-5 years to come out its very hard to change course, and MS only really started in 2018 its going to be a decade before we see anything substantial because of prior existing commitments. The Series might as well be a write off.