Game Over for Xbox One | The time when Microsoft nearly sold Xbox

The 7th generation of consoles was nearing to a close. Microsoft were coming out strong, despite the huge RROD (red ring of death) fiasco that plagued early consoles. The 80 million sales figure was in reach and the Kinect was a huge success. 

The Xbox One destroyed all that in just one conference. We all know the story; always-online DRM, mandatory Kinect, no game sharing - it was not looking good for Microsoft. When the console finally launched, Xbox 360 faithfuls jumped ship to the PS4; making it one of the fastest selling consoles in history. Microsoft on the other hand, still had unsold 'Day One' edition consoles well into early 2014.

Microsoft had a huge problem, the PS4 was outselling the Xbox nearly 3:1. Amazingly, Microsoft had to make one of the biggest decisions in their company's history - whether to keep Xbox going. 

Games weren't an issue, Microsoft had some pretty compelling exclusives leading into 2014. They had Forza Horizon 2, Titanfall, Halo 5, Gears 4, Sunset Overdrive, Halo Masterchief Collection and the cancelled Scalebound and Fable Legends.

But certain aspects of the console were severely holding it back from mainstream appeal. It's Windows 8 style UI was truly mind-boggling, as if it was design to be as confusing as possible to push the appeal of Kinect. And speaking of the Kinect, at this point its £80 higher price point over the PS4 was due to the Kinect. While It was a huge success, mandatorily bundling it with the console forced people who weren't interested in Kinect to the pay the price increase.

It all came to a head in 2014. By this point, it had been 6 years since Bill Gates' retirement as head of Microsoft. He was now in a position as a technical adviser for Microsoft, but his interview with Fox in 2014 is what made headlines that year and marked a new low for the Xbox division.

When questioned whether he would support the Xbox division being sold off, Bill gates confidently replied with "absolutely". 

However the context of his reply followed how the new goal for Microsoft was to merge both PC Windows gaming and console gaming with Xbox, designing a more unanimous ecosystem. So it never seemed like it was Microsoft's goal - just that he wouldn't hesitate at the idea.

But what makes this fascinating is that 6 years later, a similar story appeared about Microsoft contemplating selling Xbox - this time, from Phil Spencer himself.

In a recent conversation with Shacknews, Phil Spencer talks about the Microsoft's new CEO and the troubles they found themselves in when Don Mattrick was at the helm.

"So Satya becomes the CEO in February. Then the question is, do we go forward with Xbox? Because we're getting really outsold by PlayStation in the market at this point. Do we stay invested in it? Or do we make a different decision?

He and I had a discussion, and I made a pitch. I said, "You know, gaming can be a real important consumer category for the company." He didn't quite understand it yet, not from an intelligence standpoint, but he just hadn't been close to it. But he was willing to make a bet on us as a team."

So there you have it, there was a real possibility Microsoft could have sold Xbox in 2014 and would have happily had Bill Gates blessing. It's truly fascinating looking back at how far the Xbox One has evolved with Phil doubling down on Xbox over the past few years.

Yet again, as if history has repeated itself, Microsoft have gone big on Xbox once again with the Series X, taking a huge gamble and going all in - throwing everything they have towards Xbox.

References:

https://www.purexbox.com/news/2020/11/microsoft_considered_pulling_the_plug_on_xbox_back_in_2014

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjtn69H3-4E&ab_channel=HTG