
Late last month, it clicked in our minds that we were fast approaching the 10-year anniversary of Microsoft's grand reveal for the Xbox One. Well, we say grand, but the livestream probably didn't quite go to plan for Xbox, at least in terms of fan reception to the reveal event as a whole.
Thankfully, some great games were shown off at the following E3 press conference - an event where Microsoft seemed to take complaints on board about the lack of games shown previously. However, before we could get to that point we had to wade through a bunch of Microsoft's typical mixed-messaging of the era, including some now-infamous comments from Don Mattrick.
And, yep, a decade later the internet still remembers. Earlier today we saw plenty of commentary on the Xbox One reveal debacle - in particular surrounding Mattrick telling those who wanted to play offline to just buy an Xbox 360 instead.
In the years since, Xbox management has changed drastically, with Phil Spencer at the helm since shortly after this whole debacle - taking over in early 2014. However, Mattrick has addressed this part of his career in the years since, particularly in 2021 when Microsoft dropped its extensive documentary series about the history of Xbox.
We're very glad to have moved on from this time in Xbox's history, but it's always worth a look back to see how things have changed, and funnily enough, to see how some of Xbox One's initial ideas have become much more of a reality as the years have gone by.
Do you remember the summer of 2013 as clearly as we do? Drop your strongest memories of that timeline down below.
Comments 45
Unpopular opinion but the xbox one was awesome when cable/satellite TV was widely used. I liked having everything in one box, i even liked the camera and voice commands. I ditched cable shortly after that though so it lost a lot of the appeal.
If they had the number of studios that they do now then the games would have been there too.
@Wheatly ps5 and switch play games out of the box without internet.
99% of games work without day 1 patches. They might be a bit more buggy but it’s no worse than games pre when patches where a thing.
Xbox needs 1 online update after which it can play all games offline right from the disc.
The “games don’t work without internet acces and patches” myth needs to die.
Being able to share your games with 10 people on your friends list would have been really nice. Xbox had lots of nice ideas for the Xbox that got axed along with everything else.
Hindsight being 20/20, but history would had been so different had they simply done a 180 on the always-online-drm thing, and shipped a version without Kinect for $100 less on day one.
Their launch lineup was actually very solid, but they really kept digging their grave even after being forced to engrave their name in the headstone.
@BleedingDreamer they could have done that without the online mandate. But they insisted they wanted that online mandate to work with physical disks, and they wanted to lock your physical discs to your account, not being able to sell them unless it was via some authorized retailer.
Digital games could simply had been flagged as unplayable after being “lent” until the next time you were online.
@Kaloudz @Wheatly although many games these days get day one patches to play at all, it’s not all games and it’s mostly big triple a games.
I do foresee it becoming the norm more and more, but that’s separate from always being online. These days I buy all my Xbox games digitally, but I have all of them installed on an external HD. In case of outages (more common than I wish) I can simply play anything I own without having to worry if my console was able to access the internet in the last 24 hours.
As it stands, I don’t even need to be online for multiple weeks to play downloaded Game Pass games, why was it so important to mandate 24 hour checking? To block disk resales, lending and rentals.
@Tharsman I thought it was a nice trade off for having to be always online.
Little did we know that it was the opening scene of a period of ridiculousness that Xbox still hasn't quite shaken out of...
don looks like a 5 year old would beat him in a boxing match lmao.
I am 50/50 on Xbox one. On a positive side it was still my daily driver, meaning all 3rd party games on Xbox and only Sony exclusives on my PS4. Mainly due to rarely ever liking a Sony controller. I like Tech and for tech to be front and center and change and i knew even back in 2013 that the idea’s they had were a little early but for sure the future of gaming, meaning online would be as important as the box itself. I also thought the Xbox One was a way to try and be in the living room for MS as Apple was starting to take over there along with other companies. I loved the controller, i thought the lunch lineup was decent and when TitanFall came out i played that so much. I didn’t even turn on my PS4 for months cause of TF. Then the bad, which most of it we know so i won’t rehash but the thing that sucks is Sony used the 360 playbook to win back market share and MS’s momentum from 360 was lost in a matter of months, here we are now with the best Hardware i think MS has ever made and we are almost at 3 years with no a lot. I really hope the June show shows promise and they have a solid back half of 2023 and then start to really push it out in 2024.
@darkswabber I agree with you, but one of the reasons we can't have the entire game on the disc is because most games now are larger than the disc capacity so it has to be downloaded and for some reason they won't include multiple discs like they used to. With the exception of Mass Effect Legendary Edition.
@ZYDIO Most of the time the game isn't even finished development when they press the discs today. Half of why you have to download the rest of the game is because it won't fit on the disc. The other reason is it wasn't even functional content when the discs were pressed.
@NEStalgia I know what you mean. I tested that one day. I disconnected my Xbox from the internet and installed a game that I knew shipped on disc unfinished and it wouldn't even boot. It would load and then crash back to the dashboard every time. I can't recall which game it was, but it's probably not the only one in that state.
When I got the Xbox One past it's "prime" I enjoyed the hell out of Dead Rising 3 and Sunset Overdrive on it. I still used Game Pass occasionally on that VHS player-sized brick until I upgraded to a Series S for Halo Infinite 😆
@ZYDIO and all, you can check out doesitplay.org or just watch Modern Vintage Gamers videos https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9E983349p7Q and https://youtu.be/4extes1Ah0g for more information about this.
I want to know how did he get to be CEO? He obviously got lot of issue... I wont be putting him as a salesman in my store....
This guy took him 1 year to destroy what the brand was building for 10 yes and till the day the brand is hated and going down because of what he said and his decisions and his character
that guy killed xbox gaming. i was 100% xbox then 150% 360 after switching when my ps2 broke and i loved the 360 more than any console up to then ,basically, and that reveal sunk xbox for me and now i main ps4 and onto ps5. series x has put life into all the xbox one exclusives i missed but still can't ever see xbox matching the heights of the 360 again.
I'm still trying to forget
Don Mattrick did so much damage in such little time that the Xbox brand still hasn't fully recovered a decade later. Although... I'm not entirely sure we'd have gotten backwards compatibility if he didn't mess it up so bad, as it always seemed like it was done in an attempt to win people back rather than planned in advance. Which would also explain why they stopped bothering with it now that they're almost back on their feet.
@Wheatly Well said. I remember saying this a few weeks back on another site and got downvoted to oblivion. I think some people are so obsessed with game preservation and collecting that they forget or don't bother to fact-check all the game releases and their many patches, updates, DLC, etc.
Of course there are still some games that release fully done on the disc or cartridge. But that’s such a small amount now that stating one or two examples doesn’t prove anything.
Is it bad that I remember Don for his July 1, 2013 resignation from Microsoft?
He left with XB Studios all pretty much in disarray and an unclear vision for XB. Not to mention the XB One reveal fiasco.
It has long re-build, but I feel XB is on a better path. Still lots of room for improvement.
No matter what he did before and after, Don Mattrick will always and rightfully be known as the man who almost destroyed Xbox.
I was aware of that so I got a PS4 but then an Xbox One which became my favourite console of the last generation. I really had an awesome time with it. Then Xbox One X improved the hardware and was more supported by third parties than the popular PS4 Pro. Xbox One X is amazingly engineered. Then Series X was born with the latest technology and best efficiency in a console ever.
Don Mattrick is that kind of person that is easy to dislike. He opens his mouth and you dislike him already. It's a bit like Jim Ryan. However, as people mentioned above, you can't barely play without internet and you can't fix games that launch broken. Heck, some Switch games have half of the game on the cloud and not on the game card.
2013-2014 that was the day I decided to buy a PS4, with don mattrick in the helm, they lost connection to the consumers and the Xbox fans. With the work of phil Spencer over the years it's the time I decided to give Xbox a chance and bought a one x and am looking forward buying a bundle up series x.
Sometimes some things are just too early for the consumer. The infrastructure was just not there at that time, if ms had bought a big telecom company and announced packages and investment to bring service to more areas it might have been a success. But still too early, streaming is probably only viable now in places that have unlimited download packages. Do the us, get unlimited data? I know a few years back it wasn't a thing.
And yet the X1 lineup was like a dream compared to what we have now on the Series.
As for the online I can’t even change the dashboard theme if I’m not connected to ms servers… they were just being downright honest with the always online rule.
Even when Game of Year editions or editions with DLC included get released they don't have the whole content! Final Fantasy 15 and Rise of the Tomb Raider still have content missing from the disk. Other companies sell Game of the Year editions with the extra DLC as a code in the box and not on the disk
In the days when the Xbox One was launched, I was very poor and had no internet connection. My wife and I had ran off to get our first apartment, despite having little savings and moving to a completely new area without jobs and it took a while to get established. An affluent friend and fellow gamer got me the Xbox One as a Christmas present the year it was released. He told me that I couldn’t be left behind in gaming because I was trying to start my life. I thought it was the greatest gift ever… until I found out that the thing was the world’s most expensive paper weight. I missed out on two years of gaming until I found myself in the middle class.
That said, during those two years, we played a lot on that Xbox 360. Lol
At the time, most 'gamers' weren't ready for a Digital future and weren't 'expecting' to keep their Console digital Library on the 'next' gen hardware. Sony even mocked MS with their 'digital' approach - this is how you 'share' games with your friends video...
All I can say is that they got 'punished' and 'TV' became another 'nail' in their coffin, combined with 'Kinect' forced on people and having an 'always on Cam/Mic' connected in peoples living rooms as well.
This also illustrates the 'difference' between Xbox under Don Mattrick and how that 'disaster' forced MS to 'get' serious about Gaming and 'merge' Xbox into MS/Windows and bring 'Xbox' to PC. Microsoft Game Studios became Xbox Game Studios, ALL games release simultaneously on PC/Xbox and even Windows OS gaming is 'Xbox' branded because 'Xbox' is MS's 'gaming' brand - not 'just' the Console...
@Kaloudz State of Decay 2 is a very good example. You check on Metacritic and think it's a total mess. You play the game now on Series X and it's one of the most polished and fun games you have played.
And they lost me for a customer for 10 years too. Only just returned to the green side.
It’s crazy how this contributes to him leaving Xbox and Don Mattrick still rides the blame of the xboxone being a failure last gen…when he was only around for mere weeks of that generation and secured possibly Xbox’s strongest launch lineup…. Yet Phil Spencer gas lighted people for complaining their games with ‘only on Xbox’ message they sold to gamers a year prior to get them to invest in the console we’re now coming to PC day1….and then gaslighted console players again at the start of this gen for having expectations that the console was aiming to compete with PlayStation after selling us the message of ‘most powerful console in the world’…
This on top of running the console brand into the ground with lack of content due to years of mismanagement…
Releasing digital console day 1…
Investing in more tv shows…
As well as being praised for bringing us a service that requires online and doesn’t let you share, own, or sell, games….
Kinda funny when you think about it
Don Matrick did a lot of good for Xbox in the 360 era, but he, along with those advising him went to fast on the online and digital content stuff, and it was his downfall. Others there in that team kept thier jobs and you can still see the devlopment of missmanagemnt for game development.
Hot take but Don Matrick did a much better job of getting out games as the head (and a strong launch line up) than Phil Spencer ever has.
@BrilliantBill I'm still baffled by Redfall. There IS a decent game in there, but to blatantly release an unfinished project considering the state Xbox's first party output is in....unbelievable
This was the generation where my two mates moved to PC. I went with them, but also pre-ordered an Xbox One. Have to say though, I wasn't thrilled about having to have Kinect, and even though I still have my Xbox One (and two 360's, a One X, and now Series X!) the Kinect never came out of the box. I didn't even take it out of its packaging. I just didn't want it. I still have it, but what a waste of money it was for me to being 'forced' to have something included in the box that I just did not want...
As an addendum, my two mates are back on the Xbox this generation. PC gaming is an absolute nightmare if you don't know your way around a PC and its inner workings. I still have my gaming PC, but I no longer game on it, which is a sad indictment of PC gaming, particularly as it cost me £2600...!
I know Reviewers are probably busy people, @Kaloudz, but in view of the fact that games are handled differently these days, I do think that games that are heavily/frequently patched or indeed extensively added to, should be re-reviewed at yearly or every 18 months following release. Many games are very different products when compared to their initial release. The reason I say games are handled differently these days, is unlike before patching, a game, just like a film, was not updated/changed/patched/ or fixed. It was a 'finished' product |(like a film) upon release. That's simply not the case anymore. It is also why I tend to look for recent gamer reviews, rather than relying on 'professional' reviews that do no take into account all the changes and improvements...
@Fiendish-Beaver there are a couple issues with that. For one, Metacritic only accepts the first provided score, even if you review ir, they won’t change it.
Think Polygon, many years back, attempted a process where they would provide “provisional scores”, at least for any game with online components. Those scores would not be submitted to Metacritic until the final review was available, based on actual launch online experience.
This still only allowed for one revision, though. It has something to do with the goal of Metacritic, one of basing its reviews averages on unbiased contemporary impressions.
Another issue you face is, reviews take a long time to be made, and they are very poor web traffic drivers. Re-reviews are almost certainly worse.
Don Mattrick was ahead of his time, just like his one time business associate Trip Hawkins. They saw where the future was headed and tried to get in front of it, but were just too early. Additionally, Don didn't have Trip's communication genius or ability to dazzle others with his vision.
360 under Mattrick focused on gamers. Xbox One under Mattrick started chasing that sweet, sweet Wii money with the casual crowd. But, Xbox under Spencer has abandoned the console gamer completely. They have surrendered to Sony and Nintendo's supposed insurmountable dominance in the industry and have shifted focus to being a "Netflix for games" service provider.
Give me back Mattrick.
I liked the old dashboard (of course Blades/last 360 one more) so sad it had to die with it. I mean as a dual screen/multiple app windows fan yeah I'm sad. But yeah the messaging and of course gesture features and more had to be removed for fair reasons.
I'm not surprised if they did plan to back out of the console space but honestly glad they didn't many good games did come out later, sure not PS4 impact but still interesting enough and like the Dreamcast it would be sad to see another one drop off to quickly. At least the Vita had Indies/Japanese games even if western devs/Sony first party moved on it still lived in some form with a niche audience it's store and other services weren't killed off immediately.
The messaging was odd. The point was to get people to upgrade this is something an Aladdin Deck Enhancer does to have games on the NES but they sold you the same games again instead of being a good idea it was a bad one.
I never owned a 360 Kinect only the Xbox One Kinect so to me it didn't do much. I sort of played my 360 for a handful of later titles but of course as had both consoles (had both Xbox One and PS4 too) I played my PS3 more (more than my PS4 too as well especially 2016+ I collected PS3 and 360 games I don't care for the heavy hitters most do I played the niche ones on PS4 and mostly PS3 games) (I played my 360 more than my Xbox One though). Even my Wii U I have owned shorter than my Xbox One's longer life sitting there most of the generation and still used it more I'm pretty sure. Sure the odd games like I am now with 360 titles that are compatible or the Xbox One games I never got around to like FM6, Ride 2 or Demon Turf (physical only on Xbox after all) but mostly sitting there unplugged or off when plugged in.
The Kinect is a fine peripheral as an 'option' or was more suited to dancing games then a racing game or other actions but for Zoo Tycoon the most disappointing dumbed down Tycoon experience no thanks. Sure you can play it with a controller but the game's depth is non-existent it's more a showcase then a Tycoon game. Even Screamride is fine but it's more a demolition game and the tools to make your own aren't great. Frontier have made better Tycoon games even Thrillride is more fun on older consoles than either of these two let alone Planet Coaster years later for PC and consoles.
Nothing wrong with casual marketing but in the right way not this wrong way they messaged to people especially at events that gamers, journalists and other groups of people are watching where casuals aren't watching.
Sure using an old console is fine and they had he Xbox 360 E so sure it lasted but they weren't going to support it forever and also the 360 works fine offline yes but still it's because of the bad uses for the internet restriction. Then again Windows 10 is online required and they even hide local account access so that's fun thanks grrrrr.
Getting backwards compatibility was nice after that at least, some titles in the later years were pretty alright I didn't play many of them but I have my favourite less than 5 Xbox One games I keep the console around for beside just third parties I see copies of to add to the library these days instead of PS4 or Switch (still internet based like 360 which sigh, sure).
Using an Xbox as a media device is fine but it can do more than that. Sony went oh we can't just market our brand or media features we have to offer games and do a better job. Like streaming services and such are fine but you do buy it to game not be your lounge room computer under the TV. Did Microsoft forget they made the Xbox to get into the living room and make it the developer friendly console originally not be a computer/Apple TV/Fire TV or Roku under the TV. They are fine apps to use optionally but not the main reason. The DRM reason is eh. They could have handled it better.
Kinect is a fine 'option' like Move was it wasn't the Wiimote which even then many games used buttons there so if casuals didn't get it they got used to it or played other games that used the motion controls and few buttons for that audience than core gamers that used the Wii and enjoyed many non-motion games or ones with it that used it well to aim in shooters. Red Steel 2 is the most fun beat em up and shooter hybrid I've played because of the gun aiming and the sword moves being improved than 1's issues that many VR games do today and it's hilariously bad they repeat 2006 mistakes then 2009+ Wii game improvements in certain titles or the few 2006-2009 fine enough to play games.
@SuntannedDuck2 I like these long comments from people that don't post very often but are unusually honest. It's refreshing, somehow.
EDIT:
I also beat Red Steel 2 on Wii.
Some of your posts are tooooo long 😜.
I absolutely get what you are saying, @Tharsman, it's more of a wishful musing than a practicality! That said, it is why I tend to refer to user reviews over professional ones when it comes to buying slightly older games. For me, the best system is the one deployed by Steam, wherein they do a 'Recent' review score, which far more closely reflects the current state of a game over the one seen upon release. It's something I wish we could see on the Xbox Store front, or at least be given the ability to sort reviews into date order so that we do not have to sift through all the old (and often salty!) reviews. I do like the fact that we can rate a review as helpful (or not) as the amount of times I've seen reviews slate a game because (for example) it is Turn-Based, something that any due diligence would have determined well before actually buying the game. Or gamers decrying a game as 'too hard' when buying a Souls-Like...
Anyway, I'm straying from my point, as I so often do, but thank you for your far more succinct response...
Thank you, @Kaloudz. You mentioned something that I almost included in my post regarding Developers being held to account. It is a shame to see the state some games are released in these days. I do wonder whether charging Developers a fee to patch their game following release, may deter some from releasing a broken game in the first place, with the fee price being a reflection of the size of the patch and number of issues it addresses. Of course, the problem with that approach would be that some, more minor issues may go unresolved, and some games would simply stay broken as a consequence...
@Wheatly external disk drives are about half the price of most games.
@Fiendish-Beaver Personally, I rarely care for review scores, from reviewers or users. Users tend to review bomb a lot or the opposite, or be filled with contrarians and what not.
I do understand low reviews mean trouble for a game, but for me, I just read reviews to see if there are technical issues. No technical issues? Then I am likely to jump on a game that interests me even if it has a very low score.
There are a few other things that I will wait on a review for, like, if a single player game/mode requires me to always be connected online, I'll pass on it. These days I am also very likely to pass on a first person point of view game that has no 60 fps mode.
The best a review score can do for me, is make me aware of a game I didn't even have my sights on, via a very high review score.
@Banjo- No problem. I may mess up sometimes but I like to be honest.
I use all consoles but respect each side's good and bad side and the history of old consoles even if they flopped they have something about them no matter how small that is still appealing about them to me.
They are too long though yes. XD
@SuntannedDuck2 That's what I like the most, you are good 😁. By the way, how much did you like Red Steel 2? I thought it was very cool controlling weapons like that but it was a bit tiresome for me. I loved Wii Tennis but Red Steel 2 is more demanding.
Regarding Xbox 360, I used to play Kinect Sports at a friend's and it was fun! I laughed a lot the first day although I was not very good 😁.
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