Xbox Hated? (XBox 360, One to Series X checked out)


When Microsoft announced that they would be making video game consoles, many people in the gaming industry were skeptical. The gaming industry already had big companies making great consoles such as PlayStation and Nintendo. Xbox had to play catch up, and while doing so, they attracted a lot of detractors.

So, why is Xbox so hated? Xbox is hated due to the terrible advertising from Microsoft that missed the point on why people buy gaming consoles and tried so hard to market their Xbox One as a media device instead of a gaming device. Also, a faction of gamers despise the Xbox due to the unnecessary features that make their consoles so expensive, such as the Kinect. Xbox lacks good exclusive games, and most people will associate Xbox with only one game.

People also hate Xbox because they have to wait too long for updates. Some of the Microsoft business practices also made people hate Xbox, such as restricting people from sharing games or using pre-owned games.

In the gaming industry, I found you need to release a gaming console that guarantees great performance. Gamers have many options, and if your gaming console is terrible, they will switch to another company.

Xbox is among the top three video game consoles globally, but Microsoft seems to struggle a lot trying to convince gamers in Japan to buy their consoles. Japan is a big market for video game consoles, and certain things are causing gamers to avoid buying Xbox consoles.

Xbox is not popular in Japan, and one of the reasons why Xbox keeps failing in Japan is stiff competition from local companies. Social interactions also affect the sales of Xbox in Japan. The price of an Xbox console also makes gamers hate them.

Another reason why Japan hates Xbox is portability issues. Japanese people also like to support local companies, making it hard for foreign companies to disrupt the local market. Finally, the language of Xbox video games also makes Japanese gamers avoid purchasing Xbox consoles.

Microsoft released its first video game console in 2001, and, at that moment, three companies were already winning in Japan. Japanese gamers already had different options in video game consoles such as Nintendo, Sega, and Sony. All these companies have headquarters in Japan, while Microsoft has its headquarters in the United States. It was difficult to convince Japanese gamers to buy Xbox consoles when three local companies were already making good video game consoles.

Many Japanese gamers love to interact with each other while playing local multiplayer video games. Nintendo offers many options that support social interactions; therefore, gamers do not see the need to buy Xbox consoles.

In Japan, video games play an important role in social interactions. Most Japanese multiplayer games allow players to share items in the virtual world, whereas multiplayer games from the United States are only meant for fun. After the game, everyone goes on with their separate business.

The price of an Xbox console also contributes a lot to the hate Xbox receives in Japan. When Microsoft released the Xbox one, the market price was 499 US dollars, one hundred US dollars more than Sony’s PlayStation 4. In addition, the Xbox One has inferior systems compared to PlayStation 4 and Nintendo; therefore, it was easy for gamers to choose other consoles. After that mistake, most gamers in Japan still believe Xbox consoles cost more but do not perform well compared to other consoles.

Nintendo seems to rule the market when it comes to making portable gaming devices. Japanese people like to use public transport such as trains and buses when commuting; therefore, Nintendo has released several portable gaming devices such as the Nintendo Switch, in which players can play various games while in transit. However, it is impossible to carry your Xbox console, PS4, or PS5 and use it on a public train or bus.

Many Japanese gamers also do not have a lot of space in their house, and the first gaming consoles released by Microsoft were very bulky. Nintendo has well-designed consoles that can fit on gamers’ desks with less space in their houses than Xbox consoles.

Also, the Japanese are very loyal and resilient to disruptive business practices. A foreign company cannot simply walk into the Japanese market, disrupt it and make a lot of money. Microsoft did not have a strong strategy when trying to sell their gaming consoles in Japan.

Microsoft wanted to offer competition to the established local companies who spent a lot of time making good consoles and earn more consumers. The competitive nature of Microsoft’s business strategy led many gamers to stick with products from the local video game console makers.

When making a video game, most developers have a target audience, and they have to use the most common language used by their target. Xbox does not have any video games that have been translated into Japanese. It is harder to play a video game in a language that you cannot understand. Nintendo, on the other hand, has many games with little to no voice-over work. Japanese gamers can play Nintendo games easily because they have on-screen text in Japanese.

Microsoft does not have any games with a lot of Japanese-centric software. Microsoft is yet to show any commitment to make Japanese games available on the Xbox platform. If you want to play a Japanese RPG, there is no need to own an Xbox console. Many Japanese gamers are interested in games with Japanese culture, such as manga or anime. Since Xbox consoles do not support many local Japanese games, gamers opt to buy Nintendo, which has many Japanese games.

The taste in games is quite different between the Japanese and the Americans. Most Americans love to play hyper-realistic video games with lots of violence and action. The Japanese love video games that are artistic and visually appealing. Xbox seems to focus many games with hyperrealism, which is why most Japanese gamers prefer Nintendo consoles. On the other hand, some Japanese gamers who like western style video games would rather play them on the PlayStation console than use an Xbox console.

If Microsoft wants to gain consumers in Japan, they need to fix their marketing strategy and try the Apple strategy. The Japanese do not simply like local products; if you can market your product well, you will gain consumers. An iPhone is a foreign product, but many Japanese line up in stores to buy them whenever Apple releases a new iPhone. If Microsoft can try to market their product well, maybe Japanese gamers might start lining up to buy Xbox consoles.

The Japanese like companies that show they care about their customers. When Microsoft released Xbox One, it spent a lot of time trying to market the console to casual gamers. Xbox One seems like a device you will use to listen to music, watch a few episodes of your favorite television show, skype with your friend or relative in another city or country and then play a game for a few minutes.

Microsoft did not care that the console is meant for avid gamers, and many gamers worldwide did not care about the console anymore. Microsoft tried to make amends after some time, but the damage was already done.

What Are Some Bad Features on Xbox One?

Microsoft has become one of the top three makers of video game consoles. However, not every video game console they release is perfect, and there are some of the bad features common in Xbox consoles.

There are several issues that many gamers find annoying or awful when they use Xbox One, and one of them is a complicated user interface. Microsoft also introduced Xbox live and made the Xbox console too dependent on it, reducing its functionality significantly when Xbox live is not working.

You also have to install unnecessary files from new video games that take up a lot of space in your hard drive. Xbox One also lacks enough storage to save multiple games. Finally, the introduction of the Kinect system that many people feel was unnecessary.

When the Xbox One was released in 2013, many gamers complained about its complicated user interface. Microsoft designed a poor user interface with a confusing layout. A player had to make many clicks before they reached a particular game saved in their console. Microsoft tried to simplify things by introducing shortcuts by pressing fewer controller buttons, but that meant you needed to memorize all the shortcuts.

Microsoft had the brilliant idea of introducing Xbox live, where gamers would create accounts and make purchases. Since many video game developers were dropping discs in favor of digital versions, Xbox live would create a place where players would get many Xbox games. However, Microsoft designed the Xbox One to function only when Xbox live was running.

If there was a problem with Xbox Live, you could not access your games or stream movies and television shows. In addition, you could not play any games offline if you bought them from Xbox Live. You also had to connect your Xbox live to the internet at least once every twenty-four hours.

The introduction of Xbox live saw Microsoft take a stance on pre-owned games that many players did not like. For years, players would share games, and some would even sell games they no longer need. By introducing mandatory installation and a digital platform, you could not take your game to your friend’s house to play. If you wanted to install a pre-owned game, you had to pay money to Microsoft. Many players saw this move as greed because Microsoft wanted to channel all income from Xbox games to their accounts.

Previous consoles made it easy for players to play games straight after purchasing them. You could come home with a disc of your favorite game and start playing it immediately. However, the Xbox One made it mandatory to first install a game before playing it.

As a result, you have to wait for a long time before your console finishes installing the games, which might reduce your excitement. The games also take up a lot of space because the installing process stores many files in the hard drive. If you install many games, you might run out of space and have to delete some that you do not like.

Storage is very important for gamers, and, many of them, before making a purchase, would want to know how much storage the console has. Xbox One has a 500 GB hard drive, and one game installation can take up to 50 GB of hard drive space.

This means that you can only install a few games at a time because if you do not have enough space in your hard drive, your console might not perform well. In addition, many players would love the Xbox One to have hard drive space in the terabytes to reduce the need to save games on external drives.

When marketing and launching the Xbox One, Microsoft spent a lot of time trying to market Xbox One as an all-in-one media center and talking about the Kinect. The Kinect was to help gamers control their consoles using their voices and motions. However, one problem many games had with the Kinect system is the mishearing of commands and misinterpreting gestures. For example, you might say something during a game, and the Kinect interprets it as a command, ruining our gaming experience.

Kinect is also the main reason Xbox One was the most expensive video game console released in 2013. Sony Interactive Entertainment released PlayStation 4 a week earlier with a price of 399 US dollars. Microsoft priced their console at 499 US dollars claiming the Kinect system is why they arrived at that price. When Xbox One sales did not change, Microsoft decided to release Xbox One consoles without the Kinect, which worked perfectly.

Some people did not like the name Xbox One because they were expecting the next video game console’s name to be consistent with the previous one. Instead, Microsoft began with the original Xbox, and the second-generation console was named Xbox 360. As a result, gamers were expecting the third-generation console to have a name consistent with its predecessors but were surprised to see Microsoft use Xbox One.

Wrap Up

Japan has a big gaming market, and most companies would love to have many consumers in Japan. Many Japanese gamers favor local video game consoles and software because they believe foreign developers do not care about the foreign markets. When Microsoft entered the gaming industry, many people claimed their hardware and software would be inferior, and most Japanese have taken that information to heart up to this date.

But not all hope is lost in trying to convince Japanese gamers to buy Xbox consoles. Microsoft can try different marketing tactics, commit to adding many Japanese games to their digital platform, and improve their hardware and software to compete with the local video game consoles. Microsoft should also improve the design of Xbox consoles to suit the homes in Japan.

Bal Kang

Bal Kang is a technology expert based in the UK, with experience across a number of technology areas from phones, tablets, computers to gaming.

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