Let The Record State, The Xbox Series X/S Was Genuinely Great Hardware That Deserved So Much Better Than This

Yeah, This Feels Like "The End"

Man... this really felt like it was going somewhere that wasn't a complete embarrassment.

A lot has happened in the past couple of weeks at the big green house at Microsoft. After first denying that they were entirely exiting from the console hardware sphere, Xbox's "Century of Humiliation" continued with leaders and figureheads once again failing to read the room and instead perpetually tripping over rake after rake. While the dwindling number of Xbox diehards happily welcomed Xbox's President, Sarah Bond, reinforcing the company's commitment to its partnership with AMD, she then characterized the next generation of Xbox hardware as a "premium" and "high-powered" console. Which likely means it will be yet another dagger into the heart of the hobby, as Xbox joins the growing trend in the gaming industry where following more than three or four AAA titles requires you to refinance your house. Cool beans, sounds like something I'm better off ignoring outright. That's also been my reaction to the company's apparent attempt to use the release of the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally/Ally X to prime consumers on what to expect from Xbox hardware in the future. While promising in a few respects, it also came with an unprecedented price point and software and hardware that made it feel like a work in progress rather than a smooth, curated console experience. And in yet another groan-inducing failure to read the room, leaders of Xbox just plainly stated that the ROG Xbox Ally's price point was on ASUS, and they were not involved or invested in bringing that price down even the slightest bit.

Then they announced a remaster of Halo 1 for PC, Xbox, AND PlayStation 5 and stated plainly to everyone watching that all future Halo titles are coming to Sony platforms. Some heralded this as the ultimate sign of Xbox waving a white flag, and that might be true, but it also signaled how thoroughly out of touch Xbox's leadership had become with reality. Not just three to four years ago, the same figureheads at this Halo event told us that big studio purchases were all aimed at creating "exclusive" console experiences on Xbox, and that these purchases would lead to a growing, unique identity for the Xbox Series X/S. Back then, even during the early days of the Series line of consoles, it always felt like the post-Mattrick era of Xbox had a plan, and they put on a good show for the most part. Game Pass cornered the B-tier and indie game crowd. At the same time, the hardware pursued a weirdly cogent agenda: bringing its console games to PC and, on its consoles, pioneering ways to connect these two previously disconnected gaming communities through crossplay multiplayer. And then, someone or something—and I think we all have our personal theories as to who or what drove this—everything got scuttled. And to see, YET AGAIN, the people that were there when the Xbox Series X/S was first announced with that original "plan," looking into a camera and promising the future of Xbox was all honky dory with this new third-party agenda; I'm done, guys. I'm so glad more people will get to play these games, but I'm fully checked out when it comes to trusting anyone at Microsoft or to the idea that this company can remain focused on a single plan or agenda for more than three weeks. NO ONE has been even the slightest bit reflective about the disconnect between how this console cycle for them started and where it is now, and I'm just so tired.

Guys, I'm just so tired. I'm so goddamn tired.

You could look at what Windows Central and Reddit are saying about the next Xbox and have a sliver of optimism. I'm completely happy for you if that's the case. For those unaware, it's supposedly going to be a one-stop console adventure that plays EVERYTHING — your Steam, Xbox, and Epic games — all in one place, at an incredible framerate, even on your 4K television screen. At the heart of why I'm not so excited is what I consider the inherent disconnect between something that is basically a PC maintaining what makes a traditional console appealing. And I don't know about you, but it was absolutely miserable following a company in console hardware that changed its mood every month, and the prospect of having to do it again gets a big "NO FUCKING THANKS" from me. Even if that initial pitch from the rumor mill sounds appealing to you, do you really think Microsoft can remain committed to a singular vision for console hardware for even a year, let alone the expected five or more with a new console generation? We watched this company spend the GDP of a small country to get Call of Duty, waffle on it, develop buyer's remorse in real-time, lose hundreds of millions of dollars from putting Call of Duty on Game Pass, and then reorient Call of Duty on Game Pass with a universal price increase to justify putting it there. Microsoft has never been an entertainment company, and goddamn, does its leadership reflect that, and the thing that gets me is that that's not changing at all.

But I'm not here to present you with a weepy essay on how Halo coming to PlayStation is the end of the end or which figurehead at Microsoft deserves the most blame for the slow reputational decline of Xbox hardware. Instead, I want to remind everyone that the Xbox Series X deserved better, straight up. It genuinely deserved such a better fate than this. Suppose the gaming community decides to come together to declare it a "failed console" along the lines of the Dreamcast, Atari Jaguar, or Wii U. In that case, I'll be a lone dissenting voice, arguing that it doesn't deserve to be lumped into that group. When you stop and look at it, it wasn't off the mark besides having a weaker SKU in the form of the Series S, and for much of its lifespan, it could have been built as a springboard for a revival at Xbox. The pieces were there, and with none of the technical hiccups or miscalculations you saw on something like the Sega Saturn or Philips CD-i. As dramatic and histrionic as it sounds, Microsoft failed the Series X, not the other way around.

But, REALLY, I'm Not Lying, The Xbox Series X Was Really Rad

Still one of the coolest things to happen this console generation and no one talks about it anymore.

I remember when Sega pulled the plug on the Dreamcast; I remember it vividly. I lived near Sega of America's main distribution office in Hayward, California. Kids were upset and in tears; their parents told them that they would likely lose their jobs with the death of the Dreamcast, and they didn't know what the future would hold. It was a big deal, and the tributes both on the local news and even on cable TV, especially on TechTV, were immediate and swift. Like Sega, Microsoft's console decline has been a long, slow, and oh-so-painful one. But there are already significant differences between these two former hardware titans. Unlike Sega, Microsoft will continue to have some presence making hardware, even if it takes an elitist posture; their AI-pilled CEO has confirmed as much. Also, Microsoft is, hardware struggles be damned, still the biggest video game publisher in the industry. They could do what we fear or think they ultimately want to do — cut bait entirely, drop all console support, and get out of manufacturing — and we'd still see them everywhere in gaming. Every month this year and last, they have occupied half of the slots on Nintendo's and Sony's "Best Sellers" lists. It took years for Sega to have a game-making presence that didn't feel like a depressing shadow of the titan they once were; Microsoft, on the other hand, will always have Game Pass, Activision, and Call of Duty to plaster on digital and physical game advertising wherever you go.

All that aside, the biggest difference that stands out to me is that the Dreamcast always felt like a flawed system, especially when compared to its competition. Between needing to mule save data between controllers, the feel of the controllers themselves, and the news that it just wouldn't be supported by major game developers like EA, it seemed like a fool's errand right from the get-go. The PS2 just felt better every way you looked at it when compared to the Dreamcast, and so did the GameCube. Even if you want to praise the Dreamcast for the unique energy it emanated with every title that was released on it, it was a failed console, and no one would ever dispute that. And I don't know—I might be biased—but I don't feel good about calling the Xbox Series X a "failure." Sure, it was outsold 3-to-1 by the PlayStation 5 and both Switch launches have completely put it to shame, but it wasn't that far off the mark on what you'd want out of Xbox hardware. At launch and for years afterwards, it did many things very well, often better than its competitors. You can push back on every decision that Microsoft's management made in the console's last two years. Still, the Series X wasn't technically flawed, nor did the PS5 have a technological smoking gun to murder it on site. And for two to three years, it seemed like the leaders at Xbox genuinely cared about the console. Unfortunately for them, the Xbox One did so much reputational damage that it would take way more time to mend worldwide bridges, and the division clearly lost its case for more time with higher-ups in the company.

To be clear, I own an Xbox Series X, and current events have had me thinking about when was the last time I genuinely felt good about the console, the vision behind it, and the path Xbox as a company has taken to support it. I can say this: I felt really good about owning my Series X until late last year, when layoffs and studio closures gutted my enthusiasm for anything Xbox adjacent; however, that's still four years in, and I was fully content with my decision to own the console up to that point. Some people call me crazy, but I genuinely think the Series X has a sounder console UI, a controller that feels 100% better in my hands than anything Sony has put out, and a backward-compatibility program that is rad as shit. That last point is something we often forget, since Microsoft ditched it after the third year of the console's life. Still, if you're a sicko like me and want to put your OG Xbox discs of Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30, Fusion Frenzy, Blinx: The Time Sweeper, or Advent Rising to use, you can do that on the Xbox Series X/S. They just work when you slide them into the Series X disc drive, and that's cool as shit! All of your pre-installed Xbox One games from the old Games With Gold program are also right there and ready to be reinstalled whenever you want. And call Phil Spencer a shell of himself today, and that's an entirely fair thing to say if you ask me, but Xbox's console leadership for a while was saying all of the right things, and it seemed like they understood they had to engage in authentic trust-building with the Series X/S. For fucks' sake, let's not stand here and say we didn't look forward to Phil Spencer on the Giant Bomb E3 couch; we absolutely did and for years upon end! The post-Matrick Xbox leadership made an honest effort to transition away from the console wars without it becoming the abject humiliation it is now. They were carving out a niche as a subscription platform, signaled that they had plans for a Steam Deck-like but without any of the portable PC kinks, and were working with indie developers to make Game Pass a platform that worked for them. It was cool, but then everything got scuttled.

But, hot damn, were things great on the Series X before shit blew up and Microsoft's CEO decided that AI and Azure were the company's future! Even Game Pass felt like something worth committing to, and I'm not just talking about its value proposition for consumers. There was that fairly noticeable three-year crease when it seemed like Microsoft and Xbox had figured out how Game Pass fit into their niche and why it made perfect sense for smaller indie developers who wanted to experiment with smaller or moderate-scale titles that likely wouldn't fare well as traditional game purchases. Before Microsoft mandated that Game Pass had to have AAA titles, day one, and needed the platform to have a price to justify that, Game Pass was the best place to check for the latest indie games because it was evident that its initial pitch to those developers was working. Every video game with a playtime of less than ten hours was there, and it was great because it gave developers who wanted to experiment a platform. But then someone at Xbox decided that Game Pass needed AAA games like Starfield and eventually Call of Duty. When this didn't get subscriptions to meet bonkers sales targets, the price increases hit us all like a bag of bricks. Worse, now Game Pass is not just a neat feature; it's the whole identity for anything with the Xbox name.

And even in my dying gasps I will maintain this was a better controller.

Even If There Is New Xbox Hardware And It's Good, I Have A Tough Time Considering Supporting Microsoft

Again, I'm not going to demean anyone who wants to look at these rumors about the next Xbox having 64GB of RAM and one-to-one support for your entire Xbox, Steam, and Epic library, and say that feels like a promising future. For me, I can't help but be cynical. When I look at Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella talk about wanting to be an innovator with Xbox on the system side, both on console and PC, I can't help but call him out as out of touch or oblivious to how the industry works. You can't have the next Xbox run like a souped-up PC with PC-like software and still call it a console; the two experiences are contradictory. And what innovations are there that you trust with this executive leadership? The Xbox Series X did all of the cool stuff and plucked all of the low-hanging fruit; what are the easy lay-ups for them to take next? Xbox Series X put backward compatibility on its SOC and pioneered crossplay support. Jesus, how could I forget that one? Remember how the Xbox Series X forced the industry to drop its bullshit and just let us all play games online together, regardless of the platform or device we were on? Say what you will about the Series consoles, but that alone is a greater industry innovation or contribution than anything the Dreamcast or other failed video game consoles have ever brought to the forefront! Crossplay isn't a new thing or idea. I remember Games For Windows Live, trust me, oh God, do I remember that shitshow of an initiative. But with the Series X, they really nailed it this time around, and we will likely reap the benefits of this for years to come. That aside, you know whatever comes next, there's not going to be anything introduced to us that makes our lives easier that doesn't also force us to tolerate a deluge of Copilot, Teams, or Office 365-related bullshit. They put that shit on the ASUS ROG Xbox Ally handhelds, and you know it's going to be on the next Xbox; you know it in your heart to be true. The Series X/S is likely the last time an Xbox console will ever certifiably feel and function like a console, and that's something I can't help but lament.

Not today Satan. You can't trick me into getting excited about this next Xbox.

Microsoft is also an entirely indefensible company at this point. With Nadella belligerently standing by his belief that expecting a 30% profit margin on their gaming investments helps ensure a safe creative process, it feels like even more layoffs and studio closures are imminent. Even if Microsoft had a third of the global hardware market, that profit margin would still be well above the industry standard for most game projects. As someone with a bit of experience in the tech industry — though my area was artificial sapphire manufacturing for Gorilla Glass — I get where Microsoft is coming from. A 30% margin is pretty average, and the normal 15% margin in the video game industry would be considered low anywhere else in tech. Nevertheless, the gaming industry works below most tech industry standards because it is still a creative medium, and if you go into games expecting to implement a subscription model ripped from Office 365, while throttling AI down people's throats, it's hard for most consumers to imagine any future generations of Xbox hardware offering an olive branch as generous as the Xbox Series consoles did. Look at the last four years of games from Obsidian or id Software and ask yourself if the Office 365 model actually helps improve those games. Likewise, I double-dog dare you to think of a single way having a Copilot button on your controller would make playing any of those titles better.

And it's not just console gaming that Microsoft is increasingly failing to get anymore. Their PC offerings leave a lot to be desired as Windows 11 continues to chug along like a long-ailing elderly grandparent. Everyone is still buzzing about the "death of Xbox," and rightfully so. Still, here I am, continually flabbergasted that Microsoft allows its in-house PC stuff to run better on Bazzite or even Proton than Windows 11. They can talk about how Windows is going to get better all they want, but until they disable all the Copilot and data tracking bullshit running in the background, that problem isn't going away. And you know what makes consoles pleasant to the average consumer? Being able to use them right out of the box with little fuss —and, if the new Xbox-branded ROG Ally is any indicator, that's the opposite of what Xbox is going to do with future hardware. Microsoft is going to bolt on a bunch of software that doesn't make any sense being on a video game console, shit is going to be either sluggish or a nightmare to navigate, and whatever the hardware ends up being, you're going to have to play around with your settings to get it to run optimally. I love PC gaming, but the barrier to entry with maintaining your software and hardware really isn't for the faint of heart. And why, oh why, did the decline of the video game console have to catch us at the most annoying time to be gaming on a PC, with rising SSD and CPU costs and Nvidia's GPU monopoly making shit three times as expensive as it was just three years ago. And if you thought things were bad at Microsoft, Nvidia is just as addicted to pushing AI slop.

I really hope this isn't the death of vertical consoles as well.

Finally, this last take isn't exactly controversial, but I don't trust anyone leading Microsoft. I think we have all seen Sarah Bond, Matt Booty, and Phil Spencer give us a completely different vision of Xbox's future, so many times that it's safe to say their reputations are in the toilet. On the Giant Bomb E3 couch, we have even seen this exact trio go from being a scrappy outfit, fully invested in a strong bevy of console exclusives, to whatever Xbox's agenda is today. The shifts in their message have happened so many times that I can't help but point to that as part of the reason why so few people are upset about Halo coming to PlayStation. Oh, sure, console warriors are claiming to have their pitchforks out, but at the same time, we all knew this was going to happen. The decline of Xbox hardware has been so painfully drawn out that it's hard not to shrug off the Halo news with a sense of general malaise. Part of me almost wishes the plug had been pulled on Xbox hardware rather than what we have now. How much longer do you want to read op-eds like this, trying to get to the bottom of where things went wrong? More importantly, Microsoft doesn't deserve that attention, especially if no one at that company can grow a backbone and condemn the Trump Administration for co-opting Halo to further an anti-immigrant and racist agenda. Fuck 'em.

But man, I can't help but mourn what happened to the Series X. That console felt special, and I never felt like the hardware itself did anything wrong. In the hands of more competent and dedicated leadership, it could have pulled off at least a respectable lifecycle. If saying that makes me this generation's "Saturn Pervert," then so be it. It was a genuinely cool thing.