20 Disastrous Gaming Launches Everyone Saw Coming

The wildly botched launch of the Xbox One had a majorly tectonic impact on the games industry in the years that followed, and yet, it could be seen coming a mile off.

After the hugely successful Xbox 360, Microsoft evidently got a little too arrogant for their own good with its successor, which they clearly believed would sell by the shedload no matter what.

Microsoft ill-advisedly positioned the Xbox One as an all-in one entertainment device, with so much of their marketing focusing on TV and sports rather than, y'know, games.

Then there was the decision to forcibly bundle the Kinect motion sensor with it, and an initial always-online requirement in an attempt to kill the second-hand games market as well as the mere act of loaning a game.

The latter point especially tarnished the Xbox One's reputation before it was even released, and though Microsoft swiftly relented on this policy, the damage had already been done.

Sony quickly released a wildly sarcastic video detailing how to share games on PS4 - a video which may well have single-handedly won them the generation.

This is without even getting into the fact that the Xbox One launched for $100 more than the PS4 despite being marginally less powerful.

And so, the PS4 went on to absolutely trounce the Xbox One in global hardware sales, all while Microsoft spent the entire generation scrambling to win back their market share with consumer-friendly services like Xbox Game Pass.

But it goes without saying that Xbox as a brand is still firmly on the back foot, and it can all be traced back to the utterly misguided strategy behind launching the Xbox One.