Microsoft has all of Activision (COD), Blizzard (Diablo, Overwatch, WoW), Bethesda (Fallout, Starfield, Quake) titles and many more to be a substantially significant platform that other third parties will be interested in bringing their titles to the platform. They have the GamePass platform that entices many of the smaller developers and publishers to bring their titles too.
Seems like 2 sizable enticers on why others wouldn’t ignore it.
Unfortunately that bridge was already crossed when they went Day 1 on PC. It’s a legit concern though, and I think there is real discussion to be had on how it is impacted by their strategy. It’s just the strategy is the strategy at this point.
Yes, however it’s smart in that any developer targeting the PC can also produce Xbox titles with a minor amount of additional work, where the Xbox is just another performance tier (or two).
Day 1 PC stuff barely, if, ever, harmed their sales, as a PC gamer first, I was pissed off that I would need to buy an Xbox just to try 1-2 games that I had interest from Microsoft, which I felt absurd for a PC company.
Most people bought 360s and PCs because back in 05-06 there was the start of a massive PC support drought, hence the “PC gaming is dead” meme, people were buying because instead of dozens of titles of their interest, it was now closing to hundreds.
But I don’t think that’s really made a difference. Anything with a PC version should get an Xbox version if they accomplished what they were after. So what can they do to reduce that friction? It’d be an easy way for them to de-propeitoze console while making sure it’s still properly supported.
I think, in this generation, PC is stealing a lot of console gamers.
Its more on change of tastes, but consoles sold well last generation despite 99% being on PC, by 2011-12 devs were returning to the platform.
I wish they were able to reduce the differences between PC/Xbox and just have one unified development so the game could work across multiple platforms with minimal work from devs
Every dev out there already makes games for PC so the more simple they can make the game for console the better, that way no matter how little the console was selling you’d never have to worry about third party support because making a game for one means making one for the other but obviously easier said than done
I do hope it’s a priority for them going forward
It’s hard to quantify.
I think it’s brought some benefit already given how we’re seeing PC-centric genres like RTS come to console (Age of Empire, Gears Tactics, and more). We’ve also seen a good number of the smaller developers release simultaneously on PC and Xbox.
I think there was a point in time where console-centric developers started to embrace PC and now it has effectively become a place where you can go if you want to play anything (other than Nintendo games). PC, for instance, has become over 50% of Capcom’s revenue.
Ideally the only thing they shoukd have to do is console centric integrations. It’d be nice if even something like that could be abstracted out so you could have Steam, Xbox, and PC version from like the same build. I’m not as familiar with PC so I don’t know how they typically handle the online stuff.
It really does feel like the perfect end game and while it would be good for all devs, it really would be the easiest way to ensure Japanese support as well
Even though there’s still some devs over there that seem to hate PC for whatever reason lol the vast majority are releasing on PC now and are seeing the value, like Capcom mentioned above, so if they are able to lower the barriers of porting going forward it would be huge for them
Huh? If you’re getting pinged as the “op” just choose to stop following the thread at the bottom. I haven’t seen people quoting you, you just get a notification if you created the thread.
Also, it’s a thread. People can post in it if they like. You not posting doesn’t mean the thread is supposed to stop. Just choose to not follow it at the bottom and you will stop getting notifications.
It’s the settings here
“happening because of this rumor” have you stopped to think about that? They literally have done/said nothing, yet.
I’m aware it’s still just a rumor and they have no reason to say anything yet
I’m saying if it does happen that they will need to say something, even in the Phil quote he talks about needing to be clearer to the community because of the Ori port
I’m quite interested to see how well some of these games do if ported to the Switch or Switch 2. I’m not sure what ratio of Switch owners have an Xbox or PC but for something like Hi-Fi Rush, if a lot of owners see it for the first time (and probably have zero idea it’s an Xbox game) i can see the colourful graphics and stuff catching their attention. It looks like it attracted an okay amount of players on Xbox but it would be interesting to see how it does with an even bigger userbase and something of a marketing campaign behind it. Something like As Dusks Falls sadly i can’t see doing much better on PS5 than it did on Xbox.
I know these words put together may ruffle some feathers, especially here but here I go:
“Consoles will probably disappear in the medium-long term and Microsoft is just being a pioneer once again”.
We all know console sales have a limit and nowadays many people prefer to play on PC and mobiles.
What is the first step to undermine the point of consoles? Release your “exclusive” games on other systems because up until this moment and still in the present exclusive games are still one of the greatest reasons for people to buy consoles.
For now, having a console with Game Pass in it is a solid enough reason to have a Xbox console. Lets say Game Pass is available on Playstation (highly unlikely), easy, me and many others here would switch to Playstation because we love to play on consoles. And that would be a scenario Microsoft would probably be OK with.
I wonder if this started happening a couple of years from now would people care as much
I think people see HFR as one of the few bright spots from Xbox exclusive library this gen but if they did this 2 or 3 years from now after they released “bangers” like Fable, Doom 3, FH6, Hellblade 2 etc
Big game after big game for the next 2 or 3 years, would people care as much? Probably not, the issue is right now it feels like first party has barely got started
What they’d gain in Playstation sub users they’d lose from third parties on Xbox as well as all the accessories on Xbox
They’d also go from earning 100% on things like CoD to only 30%, going third party feels like it makes less sense than ever tbh
The tribalism online is so tiring. I look forward to the day, many years from now, where games are as widely available on any screen as movies and music. Then it’s just old men yelling at clouds that nobody is paying attention to. In the meantime…
Back in 2014, in Nadella’s memo to the business on his pillars of strategy, he explicitly said he saw an opportunity with Xbox for mobile gaming, elaborating that he meant the games go with you across screens.
Ten years later Xbox and PC day and date is a given and their cloud gaming approach is maturing to the point where you can play Xbox 1P on GeForce Now, Samsung TVs and now Meta Quest 3.
I don’t doubt Xbox will continue pushing the boundaries of their reach on where you can get their content and services in over the next 10 years, including getting more hooks on rival platforms. After all, they have said for years they want to reach billions of gamers.
Do I believe that means everything Xbox 1P is available on PlayStation or Nintendo hardware? No. I think they have so many studios and games in development that they have a lot to experiment with in terms of what stays Xbox/PC only and what is more widely available, including playing with staggered releases to make sure Xbox players get a sense of being first class.
And what of the chatter of some people jumping ship to Playstation? We know from the Insomniac leaks that Playstation said its own business approach was outdated relative to Xbox. You are willfully ignoring the writing on the wall if you believe Playstation doesn’t go down the same path, where they increase their own reach on where their content and services are available. If you want to be a one platform warrior just make the jump to PC and get everything.
Nobody should be OK with less competition in the console space. Not sure why people don’t seem to get that this doesn’t benefit consumers in the least. Sony would waste zero time in screwing over their costumers because who is going to oppose them. In such a scenario as much as I love consoles I would go PC only real quickly.
