I mean we paid for these games, they should always stay available. Ever since Xbox One I’ve been buying digitally and I never stopped, and I guess you do this while knowing it is never 100% guaranteed they will always work, years from now on. What if MS decides to fully pull the plug.? Whenever or even if that ever happens. I have a ton of games I bought still in the backlog, maybe I should just start with them, just in case.
I mean if I have to keep my XSX to be able to play these games, I don’t even find that a huge deal. Let’s say XSX is their last console, I don’t think it is but let’s say it is, I need my XSX for the backlog? That’s not the end of the world.
I feel the same and when it comes to the library there is always that chance. That is the only downside of digital ownership but even then Iv got over 1000 games Iv bought on Xbox. If it goes away it sucks but is what it is. I’ll buy them somewhere else
In my case I’m not really attached. Games devalue so quickly. The majority of this goes for less than $5 on Steam sales or is just outright given away on key sites at this point.
If you want to believe rumors, they aren’t stopping making hardware so it’s not like your purchases will be stuck on Series going forward
The big doubt is on how viable the console will be for third parties going forward, a closed platform like it is now doesn’t sound like it had any chance of success even if it does exist next gen
The only way I see porting Hi-Fi Rush to PS5 + Switch/2 is to get a further reach in Japan, because let’s be real, the Xbox brand is non-existent there. The problem is how do you message that to Xbox fans?
Speaking of Japan, I always felt that if Microsoft acquired a Japanese publisher, it would 100% remain multiplatform for this same reason.
Having said all of that, the games (if true) that don’t make sense to me are something like Starfield or Indy going to PS5
So now they want people to buy their games at full price retail, namely the PS/Nintendo crowd. Before porting their games to other platforms, MS should have tried delaying their big games from Game Pass, and having them only be available for purchase for a set period of time. It is becoming clear that the economics of the Game Pass model of big AAA first-party hitting day 1 isn’t working or sustainable. There would have been a backlash, but only a fraction compared to this, and the hardcore Xbox fanbase would have remained.
That is a scary thought though, them shutting it down completely, and that even with a XSX we can’t play our digitally bought games. I’d like to believe this doesn’t happen.
Yeah, same for me I guess. The games I’ve finished there’s a super small chance I want to go back to them since the backlog doesn’t get smaller. But there’s still stuff, small and big I haven’t even started with and did buy. I just hate the idea of potentially losing it, but while I made these purchases I was well aware of those dangers.
They’re going to fizzle it out and make the servers worse and access harder, just like with the Xbox 360. For me it’s almost impossible to redownload anything because they deactivated the downloads from xbox.com in 2016 and my download list on the console doesn’t work.
It’s actually easier to redownload games on PS3 because that transaction history still works.
I’ve got two HDDs with all my 360 games on them.
Including non-bc games I “own” more than 1200 digital games on Xbox.
They have one week to draft a concise, clear message. Failure to do so will IMO mean they’re acting opaque on purpose. It means by remaining vague, uncommitted or interpretable in every direction they hope to have their cake & eat it too: keep console loyalists happy (& prospective buyers of their hardware) but also eventually release everything everywhere.
I don’t know & maybe I’m being overly harsh here but this company knows what they’re doing right now, i.e. they’ll for certain have a plan. The communication of that plan is a different beast entirely though because it has potential to cause some upset (i.e. even if the death of Xbox hardware is actually their goal in the long-term, I doubt they want it to be sudden & cause massive upheaval among their userbase).
Okay, that’s excessive lol. They’re not going to discontinue the Series X and are almost guaranteed to release a console next generation. With that said, this strategy is definitely deprioritizing the console and I’ve stated multiple times that I don’t think Xbox wants to get out of the console business, even with this move, but I think that decision will be made for them when the next console flops.
Starfield I don’t know, but Indiana Jones obviously they won’t announce it. If they plan to treat their games as timed exclusives from now on, they will announce the PS5 versions months after release
I think a lot of the reaction of the fans to this is straight up insanity, but that’s part of managing a brand. You need to feed your fans emotionally and give them certainty.
Assuming everything is going to be timed/ day and date or whatever, they might as well say it next week
If all they announce is something like HFR and are vague about everything else or more case by case crap, people will just assume the rest is coming anyway
or just be clear and consistent with your messaging, which they never are
Just a friendly reminder that your access to digital games are not guaranteed forever. You will be forever at the mercy of whichever company you bought them from.
I’m not advocating for or against people selling or keeping their Xbox’s btw. I really don’t care what people do, but I do cringe every time I hear/read people talking about their “investment” in digital games. The best part is that even physical games are mostly now digital since the game code is often not even on the disc and/or the game still needs to ping a server to install properly.
