In an interview with Stevivor, Xbox boss Phil Spencer explained high-minded goals Microsoft originally had for the Xbox One and why they didn’t really work out. The goal was that the team “figure out how could we sell 200 million game consoles. We’ve never seen a console sell that many units. The biggest individual console, the PS2, did 120 million or something like that. The approach the team took was people are moving to OTT Video Services [Over-The-Top, like Netflix] and television’s getting disrupted — and if we could build a console that could be at the center of this transition and really embrace not only people playing video games, but also people with the changing habits in television, you really take the console market and the gaming market and you expand it potentially.”
Let’s unpack that one step at a time. According to Sony, the PS2 had actually sold 150 million units worldwide as of January 31, 2011. That’s a solid decade after it was released in Japan. In addition, Sony claimed that 1.52 billion PS2 titles were sold since the console’s release as well. All hefty numbers to be sure, but nowhere near Microsoft’s dreamy 200 million. Let us keep in mind too, that the Xbox One is only three years old and might very well still get there, especially with the Xbox One S and the Xbox Scorpio becoming part of the family.
That said, Spencer is under the impression that the Xbox One didn’t do so well because it was too focused on TV. So many people these days aren’t bothering with cable anymore when Netflix, YouTube, and other video streaming sites are available at a much lower cost. Never mind that cable television is obnoxiously littered with commercials. It’s certainly understandable why Microsoft might have wanted to appeal both to gamers and TV watchers, but that isn’t the end of the story according to Spencer.
The Kinect was sold with every console at launch and thus increased the price, as Spencer explains, “we’ve got to do things around the console, like the HDMI pass-through, having voice. In order to have voice, you have to have Kinect, the IR Blasting to let it control everything in the house.” However Spencer states that he would rather the console focused on gamers first, “We needed to make sure other features that we’re building are really embracing the games and gamers that are out there in the game development community and that our console is for them first. I’ll say when we look at what people do on the console today, video usage is as high as game usage, so it’s not like people aren’t watching YouTube and aren’t watching Netflix and Amazon and anything else that’s there, but I still think that we have to succeed with gamers first before we get any permission to go do anything else.” That last sentence is certainly a heartening statement, especially with Xbox Play Anywhere as evidence to support it.
Nonetheless, as I pointed out before, the Xbox One isn’t as old as the best selling consoles yet; it still has a few years to go. Adding to the Xbox family will certainly help sales, as I’m sure the Xbox One S has. However, Microsoft is no longer reporting Xbox sales figures so I can’t tell you for sure. Though Microsoft did mention that there are 400 million “active” Windows 10 devices, including Xbox One consoles. Which could mean anything really, but mostly that Microsoft is hugely successful as a company regardless of what losses it might take from not selling 200 million Xbox consoles.
So no matter how butt-hurt Microsoft might be when it doesn’t meet this insane goal when the Scorpio finally releases, keep in mind how well other consoles have done. The PS2 sold 150 million, and the Nintendo DS family has sold 154 million – these aren’t small numbers and they took an entire decade to add up. I really think Microsoft should remember that it has already succeeded, especially with the Xbox 360, and that a 200 million goal makes it sound far too arrogant.