If you go back to Phil’s interviews in 2017-2018 following his promotion, when he started reporting directly to Satya, he explicitly says they want to reach billions of gamers. He even said they’re not going to get two billion people to buy a console before playing up the potential of cloud streaming. He said in his WSJ interview at the time that the promotion was to give him more “latitude” to get Xbox games everywhere, and he even said that could mean more first-party games on Apple’d iPhone and PlayStation 4.
Spencer was talking about an Xbox app on every device, even rival consoles. Back then it was a cloud streaming app, but still, the drive to make the gaming division far, far bigger than a console-first business, aiming to reach many times more gamers than what a console alone could offer, was there and it’s no different today. Massive growth has been the north star the whole time.
We also know they tried to get Game Pass on PS4 and PS5, but Sony said no. Take that into context of what he said regarding exclusives with the Bethesda acquisition. Spencer saying they were keeping Starfield exclusive to platforms where Game Pass exists was not contradictory to their aim of putting an Xbox (streaming) app everywhere. Exclusives to the Xbox app was the strategy. It wasn’t about selling more consoles.
When Game Pass and xCloud as the tip of the spear didn’t work out as the growth vehicles they wanted then they pivoted to a different way (old way) of reaching far more gamers: ports.
Satya says his company, including Xbox, is about pushing cloud-first initiatives. He said it himself, he thinks about Xbox as content, cloud and community. As for the cloud, that to him isn’t limited to only streaming, but also includes how Xbox Live is used. So in the end the north star hasn’t changed and they’re still going to push both Xbox Live with all of these ports while the market grows into cloud streaming.
By then, would Xbox want to have exclusive to compete on that evolving market? I think, the hard part is finding a game they can leverage as an exclusive that has not been ported to rivals. That’s easier said then done.
Don’t start, Hue’s comment is tamed compared to resetera comments.
At the end of the day gamepass is going to be the selling point over exclusives if you like it or not. I just took a look at my 2024 year in review and it said I played 97 games and 1600 hours played last year. Not all were gamepass games but most of them definitely were. Let’s say 75 of them were gamepass games and the average price was 30$ a game even though they were definitely more then that. That’s 2250$ that I would of spent. On top of that you can gameshare gamepass so I haven’t even paid a dollar for any of that I’m using my brothers gamepass that he stacked up.
I’ll be honest I was annoyed with Xbox not having exclusives anymore but when I really think about it I can’t even imagine switching to PlayStation and going back to no gamepass like it’s really not even an option for me. Seeing that was like a wake up call lmao
Yup this is how i pretty much view it. Gamepass is the selling point and going multiplatform end up with Sony fans paying for my gaming habit. That’s fine i don’t need games to be exclusive to my plastic box. The more they reach the more likely jobs aren’t loss the better selection of games and the ability to bring back classic like ninja Gaiden is a win in my book.
But I guess i lose the list war game… o wait don’t give a crap about that game so no loss for me. And as the landscape changes xbox will be situated nicely as their games will have wide appeal as they will be on everything. Fable being great on Xbox and pc. Reaches some, it being on everything and it could grow to witcher status if not higher and to Xbox that is more important. Make these IPs massive so they can stand with the call of duty, minecraft, witcher, mass effect. These games are everywhere and a reason they are so large. (Nintendo not included because their IPs have been around forever and even than they haven’t really been able to grow any new IPs to those levels anymore)
If they’d rather die financially then port their games to wider audiences then let them die, they don’t get to direct how the economy works in the modern world.
I do really hope some of you are coming to grips with an industry that is changing and one that won’t be tied to any single plastic box in the near future.
Hopefully we can get a better picture sooner than later (before it does more damage), at least we can all be excited with their fantastic game lineup in the interim.
2025 is looking pretty awesome, if Fable comes out this year too it will arguably be one of my favourite years for Xbox releases.
That’s my point. For now, they don’t want to port their games, but if Xbox is successful in its vision, Sony’s moneymen and shareholders will want to follow suit as soon as possible.
Microsoft will easily be successful with their new direction because when has Microsoft not been correct going all the way back to the original Xbox? Are they early at times? Absolutely but they’re accurate and correct more times than not.
They could be correct, but the market doesn’t usually agree with them.
I do find it funny how everybody suddenly likes Microsoft games and want to purchase them. I guess it’s the thing that people liked Microsoft games, but not enough to spend $500 for a console to play them.
I believe MS will have great success with this new model but the community won’t stay.
People are still tied to the old model. They can’t just “switch” the public opinion. It’s been like this since the beginning.
We are seeing that reaction right now.
Yeah, cause there are gonna have to do something truly worthwhile to get customers to come. If they put something like the whole tv fiasco of 2013 then we know they are screwed.
Maybe, but until i see Playstation do something like port a massive game that is an exclusive of theirs to Xbox, i just don’t see it. Especially this year.
If it does happen i will eat my words and admit your point, but until then i am cynical on that frotn. No offense.
Yeah, they better the sooner we get more info the sooner we can make decisions about what do to next in the ecosystem.
They are known to step on rakes constantly, which more times than not killed a lot of momentum for the brand. Also terrible communication and messaging.
Honestly, i wanna see that Game Awards dude’s face when he realises that Xbox is gonna be more and more commom for players, if he disliked Genshin Impact being annouced for Xbox then he is not prepared for many and many other games diving into the ecosystem if the strategy works out in the end. I am cynical about the whole, do not get me wrong, but i have been proven wrong at times so let’s see if this plays out well for people with a massive Xbox Library.
That is the main point that Phil and Hihger ups are just choosing to ignore in favor of ports to other platforms, its going to be bad for them and are not finding ways to address that particular factor. Like i said, this has a lot of potential to backfire horribly if nothing is done in this regard once the next gen hardware is revealed.
The market doesn’t agree with them because the market is so heavily favored towards Sony and Nintendo. If Sony was doing right now what Microsoft is doing, do you think that it would be getting bashed or praised? I would say that they would be praised.
Also, a lot of people just go based with the brand that is #1 because they’re followers and just want to be part of the winning side.
Agreed but I don’t think this applies anymore. How can you screw up releasing games on competing platforms outside of just screwing up the port(s) themselves.
I think it will as i just don’t think Xbox is gonna be willing to port every single game under the sun just to get a bit of money. At best, day and date games that were popular as multiplats make sense, same as any other live services games. Single player games though? That’s a different story, some are more likely to have budgets that a less expensive when compared to AAA, so i think they might keep some as exclusives in order to appease current users.
If am honest, i think neither Sony or Microsoft should have went with the AAA route in the first place. Its cost is too big and we are seeing this in real time just how bad it is and how over saturated it became for the market.
I wished both would go back to making AA style games that do not cost much and keep as alluring exclusives. That way any AAA game made they can do day and date while AA can be kept for a long while. Personal opinion, you can ignore this if you want.
Let them hang on to the old ways if they want. Didn’t stop physical media from dying a slow a slow death, or the rise of PC gaming with ports from a certain publisher nobody ever thought were possible just five years ago.
Hm, i don’t think is wise to ignore community members, they are important for any form of entertainement. No matter how you see them, especially when they express valid concerns towards constant strategy shifts which could ruined their personal digital libraries for the sake on constant growth as well as the possibility of ruining thrid party support if no one buys into the ecosystem as it may very well happen without incentives outside gamepass, cause only using this is not exactly suffiencent for a platform holder with a lot of active users.
There’s currently rumors for multiple Xbox games including Halo MCC, Halo Infinite, Gears E-Day, Gears Collection, Fable day one, and others. Unless it’s like a Towerborne or something like that, I think nearly every game is going as they should. End all this shit, go get all this extra revenue and whatnot so I can get more games in Game Pass Ultimate because this is what I personally care about the most. If I can get more games in Game Pass Ultimate like Ninja Gaiden 4 and I have to sacrifice exclusivity, then so be it.
I want AAA games but I don’t need every game to be AAA. I’m happy im getting Doom and Fable as AAA games but Avowed and Midnight being AA games. That’s perfect. They all look great and are different from one another. Also, it’s tough to get away from AAA games when your console is high tech wise and made for AAA games. I love my AAA games and AA games. Do they need to start budgeting their games more appropriately, especially Sony? Absolutely but they need to make sure that isn’t all they do. Microsoft seems to have a really good balance while Sony needs to get there in my opinion.