Xbox has lost to Sony, but the real talk is about poor projections and misleading the fans.

Phil is getting pressure from the top. But the unspoken reason for the distrust at the bottom from the Xbox enthusiasts, who is, as I understand them, their stronghold and reluctance toward ‘change’ is not about anything other than having Xbox games on ‘PlayStation’ is the unmistakable admittance that Xbox has yet again lost the console wars.

Consider if you had put on the lens of an Xbox consumer.

Xbox fans remind me of fans of Toronto, Canada hockey, The Toronto Maple Leafs. The Leaves suffer/enjoy the same rabid fanbase loyalist and their rationale talking points IRL/on SM when they lose, why they lost, and how they can win! 

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more dedicated fanbase of a consistent losing ‘team’ than The Toronto Maple Leaf’s in Canada. 

When I worked in an actual office space/building (I worked from home now) for 15 years of the 18 years in the office, at the Market Research Intelligence firm, my two bosses (owners) endlessly, and I mean do endlessly, talked about The Toronto’s Maple Leaf. 

I have a perspective on this. I have listened to both of them talk about Toronto Maple Leaf every single day for a decade and a half. I don’t innately share or understand how men could endlessly talk about a losing team, or sports, that much, but observations of the men in my life have examples that may explain Xbox and what has happened in 2024.

 Generally team sports mentality of ‘team vs, team’ is the phenomenon of Xbox and Microsoft’s consumer division. 

Microsoft has the same die-hard loyalist fans as the Toronto Maple Leaf’s. I have seen this IRL. My bosses as with the Microsoft fan, devotees, have an innate need/desire to attach themselves to the ultimate losing teams. 

An example that is closer to this community and evident is Brad Sams. He loves sports, and he looks at Xbox as ‘team vs. teams.’ as a strategist.

It is not a stretch that his worldview of sports seeps in with Microsoft and how how views them. I think his love of Sports strategy is what drives his dialog, and discourse towards Xbox. How Leo is mostly hippie/beatnik-like towards the open-source community and Apple too, and BIG TECH bad, the man. He too is (older generation of the 60s) an advocate of the ultimate underdog. Remember the once Apple too was the Ultimate Underdog in the Windows 95 days, where Leo probably cemented his political world views? Microsoft was ‘The Man’ corporation where Steve Jobs was the tech liberal Beatnik representation.

Any, back to Sam as he is the public link toward Xbox and Xbox fans.

Consider that he does not talk about Xbox games, however. That is where all this discourse lies. It is clear why he roots himself in Xbox and Microsoft’s consumer-facing persona as they are in the tech world, especially against Apple, the ultimate underdog. It is his passion, his identity, and his drive to have one day Microsoft win. So much so, that he managed to create an online following of like-minded people of his own as a fanbase, who share his love for the underdog.

Every Report from Brad on Microsoft (Xbox) is reminiscent of hearing my bosses talk about hockey and how The Leaf’s lack a strategic war-like plan. Brad does put himself across as a journalist, and a reporter, he is more of a war room-like strategist.

Consider the 100s hours of Xbox discussion and extraordinarily little of it is about the games he plays on Xbox. It is all about ‘How can Xbox win’ ‘This is where they could off’ ‘Can Xbox win the next round’, etc.

I heard that same thing for 18 years at my office. There is no end to it. And winning has nothing to do with the love of sport, it is the war strategy of the potential win they love to talk about.

There is a psychology that appeals here to many when siding with the underdog. For example, two I kid you not, every single day for a decade they talked about the Leaf’s. It is their identity,

and I think that and the hope that one day, they will be the greatest team to have ever existed on earth is the certain phenomenon I see with Microsoft.

For whatever reason, in how the universe made it so, Microsoft, Microsoft Xbox, and other consumer divisions have this loyalist fanbase that is evident and inexplicable anywhere else.

Windows Phone, Surface, Xbox, and Band? It is still fodder today for many arguments, and last week I was deep in it. It is truly a phenomenon.

Anyway, back to Xbox specifically.

The distrust of Xbox enthusiasts, although poorly communicated, is justified if you put it on the sports team goggles.

This is Xbox’s fault. 100% of Xbox fans should be frustrated, irritated, and upset. To understand that, go back to the Series X|S launch and the kind of projections/promises/hopes they made and communicated.

Xbox as Feb 15th, and the rumor that preceded it, was, not directly, but indirectly an admission they lost the console war, and may never win it. This is why most are concerned about their property being on the enemy’s consoles, and that Xbox may be leaving the hardware business. This is a complete and utter message ‘Sony won.’

The hopium was very thick in 2020 and Xbox fans/teamsters are misled.

Phil had to address the Xbox enthusiasts with a message of defeat. Millions heard from PlayStation won, again! These people who may be the fewer among fans but are the loudest, also made it an online career of spending every day on social media fighting Sony fans on whose team is king.

The Xbox podcast was about resetting the goalpost while admitting defeat, they had to say, we are going to be second to PlayStation this gen, but here are some hopium guys’ “most technologically advanced console” ever next time. So, Phil must string his user base in the hope that next time, they will win the console war. It is ridiculous, but that is what Xbox console players want, they want Xbox to crush PlayStation. This is just as much of a sport to them as the actual games they play.

It is not hidden, or strange for sports fans that this discourse is celebrated, however, for some reason. The console war is not socially embraced, as all major media publications write about it as if it is an uncurable virus that infects the industry, that opposite exists in sports, even so much so the entire gambling industry is part of it.

I do not think most admit this, but console wars and the arguing, the discourse as my team is better than your team is a phenomenon all on its own.

I think when it comes to console wars, Phil knows that the only thing Xbox enthusiasts wanted was to topple PlayStation. We are #1, we are king. Xbox fans are peed off they lost yet again to PlayStation. So, Phil had to address that as well.

But this business podcast is more about resetting financial/and subscription growth expectations towards the very unrealistic growth they communicated a few years ago, it’s them hey, we were way off guys, and Xbox fans, don’t worry, it’s business as usual for you, but we’re not going to be as big as we told you we would be.

This podcast reminds me of 2023 cries from mage corps stating and readjusting their industry-wide reality check. Xbox is just late communicating this. As we should know by now, this failure to grow in Entertainment is not specific to Xbox, as subscriptions in streaming and media consumption have not met expectations in all media entertainment. Apple, PlayStation, and AMD are also talking about, look 2024 is not what we said it would be.

Subscriptions for gaming are not doing well for Sony, it is rumored PlayStation Plus live services are not growing.