The dust is beginning to settle on Xbox's big business event from yesterday, and in general we're feeling quite relieved that the initial drama is over. Xbox is clearly sticking around, especially when it comes to creating consoles and building towards another healthy generation in gaming. However, major questions still remain after yesterday's special podcast - especially in regards to the long-term future of the brand.
Let's talk about the good news first. Xbox's core strategy isn't changing in regards to exclusives, we have a next-gen console in the works that is aiming to deliver a huge technical leap over Xbox Series X|S, and the team has further committed to respecting our digital libraries moving forward. Job done then? Well, not quite.
There's a certain level of vagueness to a lot of what Xbox is talking about here. Yes, they've committed to more hardware and the importance of Xbox Game Pass, but there's an air of inevitability that Xbox becomes more multiplatform-focused over time. This doesn't feel like a huge problem in the here and now — it's been a part of Xbox's strategy for a while with PC — but we still can't help but think about whether there'll be a need for Xbox consoles years down the line.
Clearly, Phil Spencer & co. would like Sony to budge and also consider opening up more, but we do wonder if the PlayStation owner has much of a reason to extend over to Xbox. PlayStation consoles still sell quite a bit better than Xbox globally, and there's definitely more benefit taking Xbox games over to PlayStation than the other way around - even if Microsoft would like to see stuff like Helldivers 2 launch on their platform.