Xbox's Exclusive Problem

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00:00 Intro
02:03 Original Xbox Era
05:40 No Exclusives, so now what?
07:26 Xbox 360 Era
14:24 Xbox One Era
22:39 Activision Blizzard Deal
25:35 Xbox Game Pass & Xbox Series X/S

On the 18th January 2022, Microsoft announced a deal worth almost $70 billion to purchase triple A game juggernaut Activision Blizzard. The deal sent shockwaves throughout the gaming community as people realized that this meant Xbox would now own Crash Bandicoot which really doesn’t feel right but it also sent shockwaves throughout market regulators most notably the FTC, who within a few months, announced their attempt to entirely block a deal that they felt would lead to a full on market monopoly. Before they knew it, Microsoft was sent down a rabbit hole of appeal after appeal, bringing executives from all across the industry into an all out corporate war between Microsoft and market regulators that despite some false alarms, took almost 2 years to finally slow down.

It’s easy to see why you’d want to buy Activision Blizzard; They own an amount of IP that rivals that of Nintendo, some of which not only make billions of dollars a year but are some of the most valuable IP in human history, but the amount of effort and legal battles that were put into securing the Activision Blizzard deal takes on an entirely new meaning when you analyze the company that managed to close said deal. Microsoft, or specifically in this case, Xbox.

Xbox has been throwing large swaths of money at every corner of the industry for the past few years now, and this purchase of Activision Blizzard is just the most recent and by far the biggest manifestation of Xbox’s attempts to fight their way to icon status. But despite popular sentiment online, these attempts are not a practice fueled by corporate greed nor are they a valiant donation to increase the quality and funding of other studio’s games, but rather it's all an attempt to fix an exclusive problem that Xbox started its life off with.

This video will explore the history of Xbox's relationship with Console Exclusive Games, how that has affected their status in the present day, and their attempts to bring themselves into the future with a Subscription Service.

3D Model credits where applicable:

"Xbox Series X Free 3D Model" (https://skfb.ly/6WWB8) by sm_sahil is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b....

"Crash Bandicoot (Crash 4 it's about time)" (https://skfb.ly/6YTPx) by MatiasH290 is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/b....