Game On: The Xbox brand is poised to make a comeback

The Xbox brand has always been a surprising success. Sure, it has the might of Microsoft behind it, but recent events will tell you capital alone is rarely enough to break into the video game industry.

Google Stadia is struggling, shedding exclusive titles by the day while its internal game development division was shut down in February, leading to the layoff of 150 employees. Amazon Luna seems to be a touch more stable, but few people even know of its existence.

Microsoft played its cards right to wiggle into the game console business in 2001 – it entered the arena just as Sega left, and Microsoft struck up a deal with Bungie to launch “Halo: Combat Evolved” exclusively on the Xbox, which quickly became the system seller it hoped it would.

Xbox sales trailed well behind PlayStation 2 but outpaced the Nintendo Gamecube. Despite a hardware launch made rocky by the infamous “red ring of death,” Microsoft’s next console, the Xbox 360, sold an impressive 84 million units across its lifespan.

The PlayStation 3 experienced a subpar release due to its $600 initial price point, and Sony, once an unstoppable juggernaut, had to pivot its market strategy throughout the generation to eventually sell 87 million units. Sony “won” that round, but it’s worth noting the PlayStation is popular worldwide, while the Xbox brand struggles in eastern markets.

But hubris is not a trait unique to Sony – in 2012, Microsoft unveiled its next system with its own foolish pride on full display: the Xbox One was to require a constant internet connection to play games.

Moreover, it was to brand game discs so they wouldn’t run on other systems and come with the privacy-invading “Kinect” webcam packed in, necessitating the Xbox One retail for $500 instead of the $400 the PlayStation 4 ended up costing. Things got ugly at Microsoft.

Microsoft backpedaled on all those bad plans, but the public damage had already been done. Don Mattrick, then president of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment business, left the company within months. The company has been quiet about sales figures since 2014, but it’s commonly estimated that the Xbox One has sold half of what the PlayStation 4 has.

In a roundabout way, the Xbox One’s poor sales were the best thing for it. To save face, Microsoft’s gaming division was forced into being aggressively consumer-friendly – it implemented backwards compatibility, allowing gamers to play almost all Xbox 360 games and even a handful of original Xbox titles on Xbox One.

It has held constant and generous game sales on its online storefront for years. And, most important of all, it created the Game Pass, a $10-$15 monthly subscription service allowing gamers to access more than 100 games with no strings attached.

Surprisingly, few of these games are subpar. I’ve discovered dozens of excellent games via Game Pass, and Microsoft has been happy to add brand new titles to the service, as well – games that would normally cost someone $60 at launch.

I love owning physical media, so I was initially quite skeptical of the service. But if you’re a variety gamer or the type who enjoys playing a given video game for a few weeks or months before shelving it, Game Pass is a no-brainer.

On March 9, Microsoft finalized its $7.5 billion acquisition of Bethesda, a titan publisher in the industry known for greats such as “The Elder Scrolls,” “Fallout” and “Doom.” That very same day, Microsoft placed 10 of Bethesda’s greatest hits on Game Pass.

If you’re a subscriber and haven’t touched “Prey,” do yourself a favor and get on that right away – it was my favorite game of 2017, an immersive and harrowing sci-fi venture sure to please any fan of “BioShock.”

Microsoft added “The Evil Within” to Game Pass the same day, and it’s my favorite horror game by no small margin. Most games in the genre rely on cheap tricks and instant death to keep tension high, but “The Evil Within” manages to be utterly terrifying despite players having a veritable arsenal of weapons at their disposal.

Suffice to say, for years now Microsoft has been making significant and meaningful moves to redeem its anti-consumer mistakes. The brand-new Xbox released in November has two variants – the accessible $300 Series S console for casual players and the beefy $500 Series X for the hardcore.

A series of acquisitions has placed 24 game studios under Microsoft’s umbrella, promising a swath of titles exclusive to Xbox and PC in the years ahead. As the brand recovers from the Xbox One slump, I can only hope that Microsoft’s gaming division continues to play nice with consumers.

Riordan Zentler can be reached at riordanzentler@gmail.com.