The Never Ending Decline of Xbox 

Break up with basic browsers. Get Opera GX here: operagx.gg/TheActMan3 Xbox recently shut down multiple game studios and they gave the most horrible reasons for doing so. After shutting down Tango Gameworks, the developers behind Hi-Fi Rush, I have no faith in Xbox's ability to release high-quality titles. This is... The Never-Ending Decline of Xbox.

the fact that Tango was shut down for apparently wanting a few years of development for Hi Fi Rush 2 is so sad.

"We acquired Lionhead in 2006 shut it down in 2016, a couple of years later we reflected on that experience" They reflected on how to do it again.

Pretty poetic that a studio that made a game with themes of corporate greed and overreach gets shut down post said game releasing

You might not be criticizing game pass, but from a developer's perspective at the higher end of performance no amount of game pass subs can adequately substitute game sales

XBox peaked in high school and is spending it's mid 30's drunk, ranting about how he coulda gone Pro controller.

“Too big to fail” attitude never works out for any company.

Playing “Our Best Selves” from RDR2 is very fitting, considering it plays when the gang is in disarray towards the end of the game.

The entire video game industry has become a toxic relationship between developers and publishers. I don't think I need to tell you which one needs to be dumped.

Phil spencer ain’t cooking

Ah, Satoru Iwata. Not only was he a compassionate and charismatic leader, he also was a genius programmer who, among other feats, tested and debugged Super Smash Bros Melee in one week (which was all that he had because the game was due), recompressed Pokémon Golden and Silver so well they could include the Kanto region from Red and Blue in the cartridge, and he single-handedly reprogrammed EarthBound from scratch midway through development, rescuing the entire project at a time when all seemed lost. Mr. Iwata weighted heavily in Nintendo's long term success in every way conceivable. He was the kind of CEO companies only dream they could have. He is a legend, and he is sorely missed.

The most jarring thing about Xbox is the initial launch would've failed if it wasn't for Halo, turns out good games sell consoles. How Microsoft seemingly forgot this and is currently letting it happen again, is just astonishing.

This is why Game Devs need a union.

“Just one more studio” “There’s always another god damn studio”

Somehow the Red Dead Redemption 2 format you chose for this is a perfect analogy of a once great strong organization spiraling into panic and insanity

This has aged well lmfao

I remember when Bill Gates and The Rock introduce the first Xbox console. I don’t know what to feel anymore…

I like the Golden Goose analogy. It feels like Xbox doesn't understand that if you let the goose be for a while, it will lay golden eggs and continue to lay golden eggs. Instead what Xbox does is cut the goose open, take the golden egg, discard the carcass, and move on to the next goose.

Microsoft is the equivalent of that girl from Finding Nemo, shaking the fish in the bag and then wondering why it isn't moving.

This aged beautifully

I'm utterly shocked and stunned at just how far Xbox has fallen since the introduction of the Xbox One.

Aims at foot. Shoots. "Ouch!" Inspects smoking gun. Ejects magazine. Reloads. Aims at other foot. Shoots. "Why does this keep happening?"

And now people are back to blindly praising gamepass after the showcase because the internet has the memory of a goldfish

"You know, the last year or so in video games, largely the industry's been flat." Imagine saying that about 2023 (widely regarded as one of the best years for gaming in quite a long time, where several big publishers reported record-breaking sales or profits) and the first half of 2024 (which has seen several massive breakout hits already).

"I grew up with Xbox, and I don't know what it is anymore" a sad truth

What I love is now that Act Man finally played Red Dead 2, he has an obligation to put references to the game in every video.

I saw a comment the other day stating that “Microsoft doesn’t care about Xbox because they basically own the PC market”

Two weeks later they held the richest showcase since the new generation of consoles came out

Microsoft is turning into the EA of Shutting down Studios, I saw this and I was like "Oh they shut down Tango Gameworks, so Im never getting another The Evil Within Game ever again, thats just great".

I've started to notice this pattern with Microsoft/Xbox: -Buy a small but well known Game Studio -Put all their Games on Game Pass -Do massive layoffs and cuts -Close the Studio

The problem is that the people who are making our videogames now, dont like or even play games themselves.

That intro is enough deserves a like! I am so grateful you experienced red dead redemption as a whole.

As someone that worked in corporate America 10 years ago, this feels just like how it always was when it was time for your annual review and raise, "you've excelled in all areas of your position, exceeded productivity on a daily basis, but we see you made 1 minor error 8 months ago and feel you need to be more careful and do better, as such, we won't be giving you a raise this year."

Everyone: "FIRE 343!" Xbox: *Fires literally everyone but 343.*

This aged well OMEGALUL

They’ve barely even used Rare as well

The biggest crime wasn't them shutting down a studio. The biggest crime was that the first studio in line to get the axe wasn't 343.

As a PS fan, it's sad to see the old rival so messed up. I miss the times when they both busted each other's balls. Healthy competition.

Splatoon is the perfect example for use when talking about sleeper hits. I have been following it for near a decade and Nintendo has handled the franchise beautifully compared to anything Xbox has done with their IP’s

The never ending decline of Act Man

18:11 "What makes someone a failure is not the act of failing, but learning nothing from it." damn that's a really good proverb

All these comments aged like milk after The xbox showcase. Don't worry they'll throw you guys some bones.

They’ve killed their biggest and most successful franchises and have nothing to show for it. So sad how halo and gears of war got done

Aaaand two weeks after this video drops xbox has one of the greatest showcases of the decade.

After the Xbox showcase, do you still think Xbox is in decline?

I liked your straight A's only to be held back analogy, but I feel like it's more "You got straight A's, so we are going to expell you because you're throwing off the grading curve for the rest of them"

The fact that they had the balls to go on a press event and claim they really need smaller studios to make more indie titles while also just shutting down 4 indie studios blows my mind.

how did i never think about xbox vs ps as america vs japan

That was a hell of an intro.

Phil Spencer lived long enough to see himself become the villain.

I really think that Don Mattrick unveiling the Xbox One over 11 years ago as a glorified cable box was an ancient curse that set this slow death in motion.

I'm baffled by today's gaming industries. These AAA studios are messing up so hard that they are making toddlers look like a freaking genius.

Video aged like milk💀

Being an old dude, I feel like I am watching a replay of EA's strategy in the late 90's. This is the era when they did things like buy Westwood then sent it straight to the graveyard. They took Origin, a studio that had a few worthwhile IPs like Crusader and Wing Commander, reduced it to "UO only" and now its nothing. Anyone else remember Bullfrog? EA acquired them in 95 and it was dead by 01. Then there was Pandemic; makers of SW: Battlefront. Dead. Mythic had a good run, but one misfire (Dungeon Keeper in 2014), and they were killed off. Thats another thing the Act Man could mention- its not remotely fair for a studio to be executed because they had one miss unless it was some kind of "all in" MMO venture. Not every game is going to 'hit'. When I worked at Microprose, we had several 'misses', but the important part was the hits were big enough to cover them (Civilization, X-Com, ect)

Having spent the last few years working in a corporate structure, coming from a field technician background, I can tell you exactly why this is happening. Bloated, greedy, bureaucracy, with zero accountability. See, what happens in a company that seems to snowball and crush everything in its path is you hire a few people at the top who have the right credentials/recommendations but suck balls at their job. Those people make some really poor decisions which disrupts the cohesion of the company. But it's just a few bad eggs, right? Wrong. Because those shit bags will piss off a few good guys a level or two lower than them, so they'll leave. Then said shitbags will hire their shit bag friend or cousin to replace them. Those new shitbags will create more disruption down at their level and cause failures, which they'll never actually take responsibility for and will just pass the blame onto something(one) else. This, again, causes good people to leave, which causes further disruption all the way down the chain until suddenly those two or three bad eggs have either ruined or driven away all the good eggs in the company, leaving nothing but a haptic mess in place of what was once a vibrant thriving organization. The guys with the money dont want to face the problems, that's what they hired all these people for, so they put the pressure on the guys at the top to fix an unfixable problem, which causes them to just lash out and create a hostile stress-filled environment that breeds desperation and misery which obviously seeps into their work. It all spirals out of control once you let the wrong people in to high positions and create a culture that seeks to avoid accountability because they cant handle the responsibility of holding people accountable for their failures and inaction.

With game pass needing numbers, and the 360 store closing. I feel a easy thing they could do is put a bunch of otherwise lost games exclusively on gamepass

Solid point, after solid point, after solid point. Subscribed.

The glory days of Xbox Live on OG Xbox and 360 will never be topped by Microsoft again

Back in my day, the Xbox was the best way to play games with your friends , and most people played Black Ops 2 Zombies Halo and more Kids: OK Grandpa

Well this didn't age well lmao

Gotta love it they just announced Cod will launch on the game pass now

10:10 You see, it's not that the gaming industry isn't growing, it's that Microsoft dumps acid on the plants the grow right as they start to bloom.

Bro beats rdr2 and now there's a reference every 2 minutes. I love the new Act Man

I said this decades ago.. Xbox = Software Company.. Sony = Hardware Company...

I used to work for one of the many tech support teams that Microsoft has. There was a bug in the system that was sending us tickets that were not for our department but we were expected to handle them and get them to the right department at a hit to our own metrics. It got bad enough that Microsoft sent a couple of executives to hear our complaints. After hearing management screened feedback and evidence, one of the executives said to us, "Now that we've heard your complaints, we can agree that Microsoft has moved from perfect to perfect." We were all stunned and nothing was fixed... This was 5 years ago now and I see they still haven't changed.

hey that british guy in the intro looks familiar

Heaven forbid a company can just make a game and sell it to me and be done. Seemed to work just fine for companies my entire childhood. Nowadays it's like they're trying to min-max every penny they can squeeze out of me but they're legally entitled to a disabled parking spot. Now if you'll excuse me I have to get back to playing Animal Crossing New Leaf on my Nintendo 3DS XL.

whos here AFTER the xbox showcase yesterday? this video didn't age well xD

Love the intro montage!! 😃

Valve: buys company, does nothing with it Xbox: buys company, kills it Nintendo: doesn't buy company, kills fan company instead

"Do you know the difference between an error and a mistake, Ensign?" "No, sir. " "Anyone can make an error, Ensign. But that error doesn't become a mistake until you refuse to correct it." -Grand Admiral Thrawn, Star Wars Heir to the Empire

Shinji Mikami knew exactly what was going on before it happened, that's why he resigned as CEO just weeks before. Don't treat that guy like some kind of saint.

The funny thing is, Hi-Fi Rush was already developed by a pretty small team, the prototype was put together by two people, John Johanas (the game's director and creator) and Yuji Nakamura (the lead programmer). When they got the greenlight, the game was developed by whoever was available at the time, since Tango's main focus was Ghostwire: Tokyo and the two games were being developed at the same time. Imagine what we could've gotten if Hi-Fi Rush actually had a dedicated development team and budget, yet they get closed down when they ask for it

Phil Spencer saying "there's nothing more difficult for me than disappointing the Xbox community" is kinda weird seeing how good he is at it.

I’ve been an Xbox guy since forever. The original Xbox. And for the first time in my life, I’m actually wishing I had a PS5. I think I’ll be switching next console. Starfield was the final straw, it was so incredibly disappointing.

the suit in a video game themed videos thumbnail is hilarious

"These studio shutdowns, isolated, aren't a big deal. It's when you look at the bigger picture that you understand how bad things are right now for Xbox. And you know, I still love Xbox, but... I've been wanting it to get back on track for over a decade. You say you hate disappointing Xbox fans. Well you disappointed me, Phil. And I'll continue to root for you guys and hope you do the right thing. And I'm just one guy... but I grew up with Xbox. And I can't tell you what it is anymore." -The Act Man This was beautiful and hit home. I couldn't have said it better.

Microsoft wants to be like Valve with Steam without any understanding of why Valve is so wildly successful.

Here is the problem with Microsoft: "Damn. I can't afford the latest Ferrari. I have all of them and this will be the only one I can't get. Better axe another gaming studio to rack in another chunk of change."

As a casual gamer I find it hard to understand how deep youre into this shit dude to be this harshly critical

Some months ago, Phil Spencer said, "making great games will not make people buy an Xbox console". That's all you need to hear to know that they have no idea what is important to gamers and to get a good idea where Microsoft is going in the future. Sad times.....

"There hasn't been a killer app for the Series X, and if there has, you can play it somewhere else" What a damning indictment of the Series generation, and mostly for the Xbox One, too.

Ya but are we out of touch now? Gen Alpha doesn't know games without wallet milking wallet transactions and boundless mediocrity. We bitch and moan about this stuff, but line keeps going up...

You want more bad news, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 had to reduce its scope because of the Xbox Series S. The game is only 25% larger because of this console and especially because of these 10GB of RAM much slower than that of the Series X and PS5. These words were said by one of the heads of Warhorse Studios. I found out about this a few days ago and I'm disgusted because it's a game I've been waiting for years and it's my most anticipated game along with GTA6 and Judas from Ken Levine.

Always remember Iwata. He wasn't some small indie developer. He was the President and CEO of fucking Nintendo, and he was based.

The guy in charge is named MATT BOOTY!!??? That says everything i need to know

Fantastic Video! Great insights, great comedy and great pacing. Thanks Act Man.

quite frankly I don't understand what all the negative press is about I'm still having fun with my xbox regardless of what games get or dont get released theres plenty of stuff to play on both xbox and PS

This is why monopolies are illegal, But of course the courts ignore this.

Bro, the fact that your run of RDR2 impacted you so hard that now it's a part of your editorial line, I fucking love it. Keep on keeping on !

The majin-buu comparison is so apt and adds a good bit of levity to such a daur topic.

Act man have you ever revisted cyberpunk after 2.0 and phanton liberty? It has become my favorite game ever

Bro pulled a Crowbcat intro on us. And it was glorious.

Wait…was the original console called the Xbox because it used DirectX? If so, then I learned something today

**Microsoft Xbox: More Money Than Sense™** There's the new tagline for you Phil. Hope you like it.

I've never seen a game company do everything possible except make games. Instead of betting on themselves, they would rather spend $ 69 billion to buy companies that make games. That's enough money to develop 250+ AAA budget titles.

"You ever miss what we had?" "Like what? "Halo, Gears of War, The Xbox Arcade, the 360, MW2, Couch co-op splitscreen" "I guess. Do you think we'll ever go back?" "I hope so. Don't you?"

How Phil keeps getting promoted is beyond me…

I swear every new video you make just further proves the point of you “Triple A Games Are Getting Worse Video”

Intro was gold 😂, W video. Just subbed.