Yes, start slow then later do day and date. Eventually everything will. Xbox is just not that big of a console brand as Nintendo or PlayStation. The hardware numbers were never gone to match them. The writing was on the wall when Starfield release and Xbox console numbers did not even move much, if at all. Most people were buying the game on PC. If they are gone to release new console hardware in 2026? as rumor suggest. Xbox series lifetime sales will probably be like around 40 million. That worst than Xbox One. I understand why they are doing what they are doing now.
The issue is why would Microsoft have a (what appears to be big) business announcement just to reveal Starfield is going multiplat a year after releasing on Xbox, or some other games as well. A simple blog post & Phil Spencer going on an Xbox podcast to explain the situation would be enough.
Then there’s Tom Warren on other era who said insiders backpaddling have no idea what’s going on & didn’t know beforehand either. So it’s anyone’s guess at the moment.
It’s a hot take in here but xbox could make every 1p timed exclusive and console sales wouldn’t change significantly. Exclusives barely matter. Cod marketing is a bigger factor than any one exclusive from current xbox.
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I hate that every 4th post i have to stop and google wtf is being said. Im so entertained but im also 46. How has gaming chatter become so convoluted and bitter… what happened to my favourite pastime
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Personally I’m feeling negative so I’ll say there’s no smoke without fire, i.e. the hardware sales are so bad without much prospect of improving this year (& with Switch 2 & PS5 Pro landing, there will be further problems), so I’ll start from a worst case scenario prediction & say Xbox is going to announce they’re going third party, with perhaps a bone thrown at their fans in the form of an Xbox handheld coming in a year or so. But the Xbox home console will be done after the Series generation.
If you start from that as a baseline for what to expect next week, then I suppose anything will seem like better news. So I’ll stick to that, i.e. expect the worst, hope for the best.
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I totally expect a new console next gen. Probably digital only.
Xbox going full 3rd party? I don’t think so. Some games will be timed exclusives on XBox, then go to other platforms. There will also still be exclusive games and on Gamepass day 1.
That’s my expectations anyway. Maybe I’m naive, maybe I’m not. 
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Tip. which I should REALLY follow myself: quit gaming forums and gaming social media. It’s 20% cool people chatting about cool games, and 80% drama, hype idiocy and man children throwing toys.
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I say at least one more gen of console hardware for Xbox. So 2026 or 2028 through 2030 - 2032. After that who knows? My advice is start getting a 2nd platform ready now. I have mine all ready and its the PC. I can just sign into it with my Xbox account and everything is set up. Its very easy and seamless with Xbox and Windows Store PC. I also sign up for GOG, Epic Store, Steam. I have not buy any games on GOG or Epic. All them games i owned on there are for free. They give out some great free games. Like example. i got the whole Tomb Raider trilogy for free from Epic. I don’t play much on PC now as i still prefer the Xbox console, but i will be building up my PC games library with free games and such in case Xbox does goes full software only. Its better to be ready than not.
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Ohh trust that this forum is my only dip into it. I only see tweets because they are posted here. If i ventured into tweetland id need a trusty shield forged from the bowels of Cancri
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The problem with predicting at least ‘one more Xbox generation’ is this is sort of a circular discussion in which we always come back to the realization an Xbox console without exclusives is a very difficult product to market. Ergo how would such a product gain traction? That’s what’s at stake here. It could be dead on arrival.
I watched a clip of Jeff Gerstmann on a foul mouthed tirade ranting about “who gives a f if Starfield & other Xbox exclusives go multiplatform!”, i.e. he like others misses the point entirely: loss of exclusive games = dwindling appeal of Xbox hardware = death spiral of Xbox hardware.
And contrary to some analysts who predict a future without consoles, I don’t see the industry in those terms, i.e. what we’re talking about is dedicated computer hardware in a box which runs games natively on an operating system. And yes, it’ll be the most popular & common way to consume computer games for another 50 years, whether on a ‘console’ or on a PC.
It seems contradictory for some people to herald the end of consoles at a time when MS wants to put its games… on more consoles. Also at a time when PC is becoming increasingly important (for Sony as well). That’s because nothing beats having a good graphics card & powerful CPU in a box.
The Series X is a good piece of hardware for what’s worth. It’s just becoming increasingly neglected by MS who’re finding more & more avenues to undermine its appeal (& throwing their biggest games onto PS5 will be a disaster for the Xbox hardware).
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Slowly build your user base with cool exclusive games and subscription services. Win a bigger audience with more 3rd party games. Bring back the old fans with franchises they miss.
That would have taken years, certainly more than one generation; but as long as they keep Xbox profitable and growing, the problem doesn’t have to be solved right now. And if Microsoft is still #2 in the high-end console business after this? So what? Who says only one manufacturer can win? I miss the day when a Playstation wasn’t the only thing we could buy: Atari, NEC, Sega, Nintendo, Playstation… etc
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I said I wouldn’t comment on this stuff again until we had official info to base opinions so I’m not going to, but, seeing some of the stuff posted here and quoted from wider sources (twitter/other forums) I had to jump in just to remind some of you guys that there are a lot of bad actors out there and the majority of them are now jumping on these rumours and MS reticence to release an official statement to cause harm to the Xbox community and Xbox customers.
There is a lot of gaslighting going on in various forms such as “you guys are bad for gate keeping content” or “we warned you this is coming so it’s on you for falling for the lies” to outright exaggeration “MS will announce full 3rd party and burn down the current userbase in favour of their new favourite customers PS owners”
I can see why the thread has been slowed as it’s not good for anyone to constantly be focusing on all of these made up negative takes designed to make you question your decisions and motivations.
If you want a good yard stick to measure this on then just take a look at all of the people championing this as a great thing for “gamers” as exclusivity is bad and see how many of them are using it as a platform to champion Sony or Nintendo doing the same thing. Spoiler alert the answer is zero. Which gives you a clear understanding of their true motivations.
Same goes for insiders posted from twitter or other forums, as others have said some of these guys have been at this for years spouting their “insider” information that is invariably damaging to Xbox. This is why other forum references and quotes are frowned upon here. And this goes for some posters here too. Educate yourself on peoples views and if they are constantly negative take that into account and don’t let it overly influence how you are feeling.
Phil gave himself (and his team) 2 weeks to communicate on this which means there are still potentially(depending on your views of start/end of week) 11 days before we get any official information on this.
My advice is to not spend the next 11 days focusing on increasingly more outlandish rumours and hot takes from those same bad actors. It’s not good for you. Focus on what gives you personally value from Xbox, identify things that are important to you as a customer and use them to frame a response to the reality presented by Phil next week.
It may be you get to this is all OK for you and worth while of future investment or it may it’s not and you’re off to game elsewhere but whatever it is it will be framed on your own thinking and what you value.
You are the customer. They will present what they are selling but you decide whether you like it enough to buy it.
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Interesting. But something like Starfield I’d absolutely call high profile, or the whole Gears franchise. Of course it’s possible it was bullshit to begin with, or that they DID consider it but decided against it ultimately.
Before XboxEra’s Starfield article I was like “meh, we’ll see.” with all these rumors, but then that article came and for the first time since all those rumors I was like…wtf!
There is not a world where I continue to buy third parties games on my xbox to see them vanish in two gens because MS doesn’t want to compete for something else than cash grab.
I’ll wait for the speech of Phil but I’ve no faith as Tim Stuart seems to be the real CEO and puppet of Satia in Microsoft Gaming.
I think that my future purchases will be made on steam.
I’m sorry but the road MS take is not the customers one.
What a shiit show
- Trying to raise the prices of GWG
- Removing Games with Gold without adding any new value
- Serie S at the price of PS5 discless in Brazil
- Multiple PC ports below expectations : Starfied, Forza, Redfall
- Massive layoffs in 2K2 and 2K3
- MS store on windows is still a massive piece of shiit
- You can do whatever games you want but cancel Blizzard one and layoff everyone.
- Streaming on xbox is a pain in the ass. XBOX Dashboard dev seems to be in slowdown mode since 2 years.
- End of Mixer
- We are still waiting for any signifiant impact of the Acti/Bli deal.
That is a lot of errors from the board of MS and all seems to be driven by greed of CFO and Satia.
Let’s see next week but for now I’ve lost all my confidence in MS
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Isn’t it interesting that a lot of insiders, responsible for this discourse, started throwing gasoline on a small fire and are now suddenly all trying to put out the fires? I remember when Jez told about how MS sometimes contacts you if they’re not happy and will let you know. Maybe MS saw the damage this was causing them and asked to put those flames out aka damage control in the meantime.
I trust Rand more than anyone else. He’s rarely wrong about anything. When he said expect more soon… Some will shock you it was all I needed to know. The only game that would shock me is Halo.
And I don’t know about yall but Phils tweet was very ominous. If them releasing games on rival platforms was a lie they’d immediately shut that down. The fact that they need A WEEK to prepare for this should be worrying. It means the news is so bad they need a lot of time to come up with the most PR statement ever to try to damage control.
To the people saying it’s just a few games guys most games will be timed exclusive don’t get it. It doesn’t matter if it’s all games or 1 game. Even 1 game is damaging enough. You all know how much the gaming media HATES Xbox. They don’t want Xbox around. They want it dead. What do you think the narrative will be from them? Millions of articles about when the next Xbox game is coming to PS. Even my coworkers who aren’t really gamers asked me that they read about Xbox releasing games on PlayStation. Imagine this x10 but not for every day all year. Millions of articles about when is this game coming to PlayStation. Once you open that pandoras box there’s no closing it. Xbox consoles aren’t competing with PCs and even that hurt the console sales. Now imagine what releasing even a single exclusive on your rival platforms will do to those console sales. Can’t believe these insiders aren’t seeing this. Let’s say as an Xbox fan im thinking of buying a PlayStation as they have a great roadmap but Sony is releasing Ratchet on Xbox. I simply won’t buy a PlayStation thinking if 1 game comes eventually more will follow.
Also think of the poor developers. Instead of having to make a game for 2 platforms in 5-6 years they have to now make it for 4 platforms in the same amount of dev time. That will surely negatively affect the quality of the games (which was already so so to begin with in my eyes and the main reason why console sales havent grown).
I have really lost all respect for all these insiders/gaming media who say this is a good thing. I don’t think they lack the intelligence to see the real issue here. That the next Xbox console could sell so little that 3rd parties could all pull out because the cost/effort to port over their games to a small base isn’t worth the effort. Then MS will lose up to double digit billions of revenue which was the reason why they sold consoles at a loss because that 3rd party money they were getting from their store would make up for all of it. That’s when MS will be forced to stop making future consoles. IF IT WAS UP TO MS THEY WOULD MAKE XBOX CONSOLES FOREVER. But it will not be up to them but up to how many millions buy said console. Which brings me to these insiders/gaming media saying this is a good thing. They’re smart enough to understand this. But they’re salivating at the tought of Xbox dying as a platform holder. These same people saying this is a good thing are the same people that if Xbox consoles ever die will come out and shed crocodile tears.
I hate that Larian studios guy on twitter. Working for a developer first and foremost he should not be celebrating something that WILL eventually hurt developers, more layoffs, studio shutdowns, crunch. When your only source of income could potentially be only copies sold one day because of these actions what does this guy think is going to happen to talented studios like Ninja Theory, InXile, Obsidian, SOD developers, Double Fine etc.?
Xbox will be fine going forward… Another take I hear a lot. I’m not so sure about that. If MS is not happy with their current strategy where they’re not growing fast enough I’m fairly certain this new multiplatform shift isn’t gonna satisfy their needs either. This smells of desperation. Let’s say the next Xbox console best case scenario sells 30m (reality is it will probably sell less than half that). And 3rd party pulls out leaving with a Xbox store that is losing so much revenue to the point it’s no longer profitable to create a console. Since gamepass has a around 90% attachment rate with consoles gamepass subs will drop off too. What do you think MS is gonna do to gamepass when that happens? Slowly shut it down. Now there’s no gamepass and no future console after the next one. Now MSs only income will be copies sold. No more recurring income. Now they’re just a publisher. Now look at all the other massive publishers and how growth there is unsustainable. Xboxs identity will be lost. No more creativity for devs. As a publisher with very few appealing games to casuals they will have to trim a lot of fat meaning layoff, shutdown, sell off studios that don’t sell a lot of copies and turn a net profit. The Sony way. Except Sony has a great quality control. MS has not.
MS is doing this so they can acquire all the publishers and have all the power*… lol that’s never happening. First of all regulators don’t care about competition or the fact that MS could make exclusives. That’s just a reason to stop them. Regulators just want to stop big tech REGARDLESS. If MS becomes a publisher with no hardware or services and buy Take2 and EA regulators will try to stop them just as badly.
**Phil Spencer might not be responsible for this sudden change in strategy but I 100% blame him for being the catalyst that caused this change. He does many great things but his inability to create Zeitgeist games has failed Xbox to grow. ** **If Nintendo and PlayStation can rebound to 100m consoles sold so frequently and Xbox cannot it’s because of the unappealing content simple as that. Look at the most popular let’s plays on YT… half are PlayStation/Nintendo games with Rockstar games, Capcom, CDPR etc Not even a single Xbox game. As a platform holder that’s sad. Halo Infinite is a failure because not only did they lose a lot of money on it but it’s evident that it failed because they scrapped the 10 year plan like that. For me an 87 meta isn’t bad for a original ip but it’s pretty bad for a flagship IP of a platform holder. We need to stop capping for these Xbox games and demand better because this is exactly why MS is releasing games on rival platforms. All their games aren’t great enough to attract new customers and grow. **
**At the end of the day you need Zeitgeist games to succeed in gaming wether it’s badly scored but highly popular games like Fortnite, Roblox, Apex, Fifa or high 90 meta games like The Last of us, Zelda, Red Dead, GTA, Elden Ring, BG3 etc etc. ** MS hasn’t had even a SINGLE one in 21 years. We can all sit here and cap for all these Xbox ganes and say how amazing they are but clearly casuals disagree because gamepass and consoles aren’t growing. And neither is PC/mobile/cloud.
So unless they can consistently create those type of games this new strategy will 100% fail too. There’s a reason why PlayStation and Nintendo have such strong brands. They rightfully earned/cultivated it by consistently releasing zeitgeist games for every generation. And as long as MS fails to see this every strategy of theirs will fail too. If it was up to me I’d replace Phil with Zelnick in a heartbeat. Phil kept Xbox alive last gen and I’m grateful for that but today Xbox needs a leader capable of creating zeitgeist games with better quality control. Zelnick understands the importance of those games to business growth.
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I feel im the only one left that says a hard no to all of this. If it is all ABK.games are multiplat and HiFi Rush is going I’ll deal with that but anything else no.
I’d anything more goes then I’m leaving the brand, they clearly have no interest in the fan base but instead bashing them around, leaving them in the dark, no issue lying, hardware likely to die, about 1 exclusive a decade.
Why support that? I prefer the Xbox UI and Pad of PS by far but I get Spiderman, Last of Us Uncharted, GT, Horizon etc while Xbox gives me all the above.
You’d never get Nintendo or Sony fans being treated this way. Simply put it’s a toxic relationship with Xbox.
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Now looking at all that Nate has said it almost sounds like MS could have released a video, explaining that high profile titles stay exclusive, while more niche titles will go multiplatform. Basically what was in that ABK document. And way before it spiraled out of control thanks to a leaker.
But, again, isn’t this basically what that ABK document said as well? Niche titles etc? It’s definitely more than this, if they had planned this for end of this month and now pushed it forward. Hopefully nothing drastic for Game Pass.
Knowing that the best rated 2023 Xbox game is going to PS5, and that it’s not an exception, from a logical, clinical, analytical point of view, I see no reason for anyone to stay in the Xbox ecosystem, and every reason to leave it as soon as possible. Sony keeps moneyhatting 3rd party games, and has a better 3rd party support from Japan anyway. Microsoft games was what I had in the balance as a counterweight. I love all Microsoft games including Redfall, but still, I needed more reasons to own an Xbox, not less, and that was the point of these acquisitions.
Microsoft is acting like they got us locked in and they can count on us to invest in their ecosystem until THEY decide to pull the plug. Rationally speaking really: I have a PC and I have stopped buying games from the Microsoft store; and if the PS5 pro is real, I will happily get one to enjoy the superior version of the Microsoft games that I love.
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I say no as well. I think everyone who likes Xbox says a hard no because people aren’t stupid, i.e. we know where this all leads: Xbox pulling out of the hardware space.
MS can’t take a system which is selling worse than Xbox One at this point in the generation & then give potential buyers even less reason to purchase the Series hardware, i.e. not without fully realizing where this is headed. So it’s about balancing the math between pros & cons of third party publishing. It looks like the pros might have won the internal debate, i.e. to the detriment of Xbox hardware owners.
Something I’ll reiterate here & it’s something I won’t stand for: I’m going to call out anyone gaslighting Xbox owners by painting them as bad guys for not wanting multiplatform releases which benefit ‘everyone’, i.e. when people who’ve invested in the hardware & ecosystem get shafted, then no, it’s not benefitting everyone. Pretending we’re spoilt children for wanting the Series generation to deliver the content & future we were sold is not being spoilt. It’s just a normal business relationship between customer & company.
I’ll surmise the situation like this: if someone bought an Xbox console under the pretence that Starfield was exclusive to that console (& that person didn’t have the money for a PC either) & MS goes ahead & releases the game on PS5 within a year (without prior warning last year), then that person has been duped.
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I know that’s what each company claims. But it doesn’t make much sense. Sony is not producing essentially the same hardware for $200 less!
My guess is that MS includes R&D in this, while Sony is referring to manufacturing costs only.
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