They lacked the IP to lure new customers into their ecosystem, who didn't care about Halo, Forza and Gears. That's the main reason for the Bethesda acquisition.
I do not fathom that there are people that actually believe this. Microsoft had Fable, Project Gotham Racing, Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, Crimson Skies, Rallisport Challenge, Midtown Madness etc. Microsoft's biggest problem was always outsourcing development and the studios they partnered with getting acquired as they sat.
Microsoft got studios because they needed someone to come in and develop content for Game Pass. Playground, Undead Labs did not own any property and The Initiative has been brought in to make a legacy title. Getting studios like Ninja Theory, InXile, Obsidian or Zenimax that owned IP was a bonus, and in the case of latter iconic IP. Had they not got Bethesda, they would have pushed for someone else. They would have possibly met the asking price for Warner Brothers Interactive Entertainment.
Well I never said the bolded... you aren't really responding to what I've specifically said.
Sony has an insane amount of brand and market momentum; Microsoft has a lot of promise.. but even w/ Gamepass at the end of the gen they just continued to be stagnant as far as market share vs. Sony is concerned.
Yes they've acquired Bethesda since then, and their devs they acquired or created in the 2017-2019 timeframe will eventually have some decent output.. and that should change things. But the question is by how much; I don't think it's going to somehow cut into the 2x's share Sony has over them right now.
What did people expect to happen last generation? Really?
When Game Pass started out, it was this small venture that went through the growing pains that all content related start ups go through. You have a period where you start getting content in, but it is not enough to entice people that they need the service and that growing phase is difficult because you are spending money and not getting much back. So the thought process has always been to invest as much as you need to stimulate demand and not more than what is needed.
To this end, you can see that they made studio acquisitions at a point where these studios were primed to get games for the next console. Getting more people into the Xbox One would have been great, but all the investments Microsoft was making were geared towards capitalizing on a new generation.
I also think that people are looking at these things in the wrong manner. Microsoft would love to sell as many consoles as Sony if not more, but is that currently feasible? On the face of it, it looks extremely difficult to imagine that this would come true. However, business is not done on absolutes. The aim for Microsoft is going to be to get more console sales than they got last generation, and to position Series S as a console that an be bought by people looking for a cheaper entry point, or people that want a secondary console. The Series X can be positioned as that console that gives the best performance, and then they have to lean towards their first party delivering.
As stated, Sony has been the consistent performer when it comes to console sales, but that does not mean that if someone else makes the right moves that they are unable to capture market share. History shows us that this is something that happens quite regularly. Get off to a good start and build on that.
