Yeah, same here. But hopefully Starfield isn’t the one being moved. Sigh. 
Would be nice if we get to a point where we truly get big titles in the first half and also on the second half of a year. It’s the plan, that’s clear. But it’s not yet a reality. Although 2021 was pretty strong starting at August, but earlier that year wasn’t all that.
That’s a pretty interesting point by Grubb. Especially during a time when there won’t be major competition in the space most likely for a couple more yrs at least, it makes holding onto existing subs a lot easier than it otherwise will be down the road.
Makes sense now why Forza Horizon 5 and Halo Infinite were released in close proximity to each other.
Yeah I’ve heard this before not just for subscriptions, but for any type of business. It takes the most rocket fuel to get something off the ground. Keeping it in the air cost far less fuel. It’s the same with adding vs keeping customers. Churn is obviously still a concern however the likelihood is that once people are aboard, they’ll stay. Getting them is the hard part. So if someone is a huge fan of Western RPGs, having Starfield and Avowed in the same year would only improve Microsoft’s opportunity to capture fans of that genre vs. spacing out those releases.
This is exactly why the second half of 2021 was so huge for Xbox. They had back-to-back bangers month after month, while Sony had basically nothing, and I think we will get a repeat of this in the first half of 2023 (hopefully the second half as well).
Halo’s MP beta release actually really stunted FH5’s growth I think. I don’t think that was deliberate at all so much as they needed Halo to ship by year end and wanted to have something notable to surprise us with on Nov 15th.
It would be interesting to see some analysis of release schedules on other streaming services (even non-gaming stuff) to see what patterns emerge wrt when big content lands at what cadence and how that affects success.
They already made several. They signed an agreement to not hold back CoD on PSX in any way for 7 yrs into the future, agreed that other major IPs (likely Diablo and Overwatch at the very least) would still launch on PSX, and embraced a whole suite of changes to their ecosystem that plays nice with pending tech antitrust legislation. They knew regs would require that stuff so they got out in front of it, which imho has helped them a lot so far both in PR and wrt the way regs will read the situation.
What’s weird is how so many seemingly forgot back half 2021 even happened for Xbox. Really shows that certain sectors of the industry aren’t even paying attention to Xbox in some cases. 2023 will make sure everyone knows what’s up though I think. 
Is there a short term impact ? Maybe but I don’t think it’s impactful at all beyond that first week,
It will always be “what have you done for me lately” and also Sony does have a more consistent release cadence (i.e. years), which is why their drought from June 2021 to February 2022 wasn’t criticsed.
I don’t have the numbers on hand, but definitely remember that FH5 was still skyrocketing in players when the beta for MP hit and then it stopped growing pretty immediately. It is doing well still and still grows now, but there was a time period around Xmas where it wasn’t gaining a ton of new users after it lost that momentum. It’s around 25mil+ atm, which is still amazing tho.
PS5 had Deathloop in that timeframe, and that was super well received critically. Many in the press also really liked Kena. /shrugs
People went…
Who cares about Flight Simulator, Psychonauts 2 is not a exclusive, FH5 is a racer and Halo Infinite is more Halo.
Basically.
But it was a damn strong last few months.
I was talking about first party but you’re not wrong.
I think it’s normal for a game to lose “momentum” after the initial first month.
After that initial explosion, it’s on the developers/game to build on that in the following months/years.
Strongest ever if you use review scores. And Deathloop wasn’t even counted in the XGS MC publisher rankings (which is stupid). XGS (even sans Deathloop) averaged 87% for their releases in 2021 and basically all were back to back to back releases. It was insane. It won’t all be XGS stuff in 2023, but when you think about the indie gems coming and XGSP deals 2023 will be fucking wild for Xbox exclusives.
It was after its first week when the MP beta hit. And as I noted, it was on the rise and showed no signs of slowing down…then everyone played Halo instead, heh. Halo had a similar effect on FlightSim too, which also was doing really well and generating buzz only to drop off the moment Halo’s MP flights started a few days after FlightSim’s release. Halo MP was out there killing their own game growth!
i don’t know, I’m not rolling with that unless you got legitimate sources lol.
Agree to disagree 
Source is myself since I remember it happening both times, lol. FH5’s player numbers were a hot topic right after it released since it was speeding up fast. You can also find the timeline of FS’s release compared to HI’s first flight, which was a few days later. FS released July 27th, HI’s flight was the 29th. FH5 released Nov 9th, HI’s beta was the 15th. /shrugs
If Microsoft gives me Redfall, Contraband and Starfield for 2023, anything else would be a bonus for me. But first things first, im hoping Redfall is early 2023. Late February/early March. If I don’t see it get a release date by The Game Awards then im not expecting anything until late Spring/early Summer.
I’m also hoping that 2023 isn’t over stacked at the expense of early 2024 for example. If for example, they release 6 games in 2023 but then the first half of 2024 is empty, then I expect 2 games to be pushed to 2024.
Either way, all is looking good for 2023 and beyond. Giving me a first party exclusive every quarter would be ideal and if it’s every 2 months, even better but I just hope that once everything gets going, there’s no more major or severe droughts.
I’m of the same opinion as @TavishHill here. Halo Infinite interrupted the growth of FH5 to an extent, but that was shortlived and Forza is doing a hell of a lot better than Halo since that temporary bump in the road.
That was my point though, it might have a short term impact but it’s nothing to the extent where it’s negativity impacting a game. Especially when it comes to a live service platform like FH5.
Within a month in 2022, FH5 was doing better than Infinite despite Infinite being a free game and coming out after FH5.
Single player games though ? That might be a different story, we’ll find out soon enough.