'Gaming Is Bigger Than Any One Device,' Says Xbox Boss On Cross-Gen Strategy

I suppose that holds up if you want to play a crappier version of a Series X game?... I mean, on the hand it's a decision which enables last-gen console owners to play new games, but it also creates revenue for Microsoft obviously, so the altruistic tone is a bit heavy-handed imo.

I never understood this mentality. I get why companies push for exclusive games. Force consumers into their ecosystem. What I don't understand is the support of exclusives by the player base. Why do people brag that a company is forcing them to spend hundreds of dollars so they can spend more money on other products? What benefit do they gain from it? If Microsoft forced me to buy the series x for Halo then the only thing that I would get out of it is a couple hundred dollars poorer for a console I may or may not want right now. How did gamers get to a point that after forking over the money they feel like they have now joined some team... it's weird.

I feel like Spencer is treating the next Xbox line up more like TV's and less like phones. You buy a TV because of the price and the quality, not because of the content. Imagine going to shop for a TV and finding out that if you want to watch Netflix you'd need a Samsung, but the new Marvel movies only play on a LG. People would lose their minds.

A sensible stand is buy Series X if you have a fat Xbox One or an Xbox One S and wait until next year if you have an Xbox One X.

Yes but exclusives drive console sales. With Xbox coming out the gate with two different consoles and games that play on a console you already own, what's the incentive to upgrade?

@ShaiHulud nothing personal but I would say your cynic tone is heavy handed. Yea, of course MS is set to make money from selling the games to a larger installed base of X1 players, as well as PC, does not make the point any less true. Its not like it wouldn't be cheaper for MS to make the game only for one target console.

Yea, some players will play the "crappier version" of a Series X game. Some already do just that by playing on an XOS. Hell, a ton of people play The Witcher 3 and Skyrim on a Switch. Some even will play a game that plays best on an X1X on a launch PS4 or VCR X1. If they have fun with the game, more power to them!

@BlueOcean To heck with that, I have an X1X and pre-ordering me that XSX the second i am allowed to!

@RedShirtRod "What I don't understand is the support of exclusives by the player base." I cant claim I am not guilty of this, in some form, but it is basically fandom wanting to see their prefered platform succeed, even if it means forcing others to spend money they would not spend otherwise buying new hardware. After all, the more of those consoles sell, the more developers will seek to make games for it, feeding the player (that asked for exclusive) library of games further.

@SuperNintendoMii "what's the incentive to upgrade?"

Same reason phone users upgrade their phones, and same reason PC gamers upgrade their video cards and cpu: faster, better looking everything!

You know how many buy a new console then turn around and ONLY get the latest version Madden or Fifa that are available on last gen?

@Tharsman phones and consoles are different though.

I get that a lot of people play the sports games or some crappy cod rehash, but exclusives also drive console sales. I know if I want to play spiderman miles morales, I have to get a PS5. If I want Halo... I don't have to get a series x or lockhart, I can get it on my one x

I love that Microsoft is doing this. It’s a very pro consumer move & it should be lauded. The only people complaining about this are fanboys from another console. Phil has a great outlook on gaming & I am so happy he is in charge of Xbox.

@Tharsman I agree with all the answers you've just written. LOL I also have an Xbox One X and it's very likely that I won't resist either .

@KelticDevil Yeah, they'll always find something dark in good Phil's words...

@SuperNintendoMii
MS is looking more at how PC gaming works.
Anyone familiar with that scene with see what MS plans.
The only people confused/angry are console-only gamers that have never seen this method before.
MS wants you to buy into the Xbox eco-system. That's where the real money is at, not console sales.

@SuperNintendoMii "If I want Halo... I don't have to get a series x or lockhart, I can get it on my one x"

If you want to play Halo, and dont happen to have an XBox, your only choice in the market is likely going to be a Series X or a Series S, unless you want to get a used machine off eBay.

I dont need an XSX to play Halo Infinite, but I WANT it.

Also: you make a distinction about Phones being different from consoles but dint dismiss the PC upgrade cycle. People that want better/faster graphics/framerate will upgrade.

God I wished Nintendo had Phil Spencer in their helm.

Actually, Phil is the reason I chose Xbox over Sony. I only wished they had some plans regarding VR for next-gen

@Desy64 they may in a few years. Give it time. For all we know they could just make oculus work on their systems in the future and wouldn’t have to spend so much developing their own.

@xMightyMatt14x Yes that's why I expect.

@xMightyMatt14x I hope so! Can't wait to go back for Skyrim VR with Series X

@blinx01

Exactly. Couldn’t have said it better myself.

@ShaiHulud "if you want to play a crappier version of..."

Which is exactly why no one in this thread plays on console. None of us what the crappier version, so we all play on PC where the absolute best possible visual presentation can be achieved. It's also why the xbox one destroyed the PS4 once the xbox one x released, and why the PS4 didn't outsell the PS4 Pro at about a 4-1 ratio.

Ain't nobody got time for that noob life.

@RedShirtRod Brand loyalty. It's the same psychological driving force that causes people to argue over console unit sales and how "the PS3 beat the 360 in the end", or how "xbox has no exclusives", "all PS exclusives are a masterpiece". Yes, you might be seeing the theme there and it's not an accident.

It's people being brand loyal and when the brand does well it's a type of validation of their choice, and their ability to make smart consumer choices. They get a big hit of dopamine and any change to that brand could threaten that psychological reward.

They've basically Pavlov's gamer.

@Tharsman sure. But how many of those halo fans already have an Xbox One? Doesn't change the fact that exclusives drive consoles (though not at first, those sell to fans), and Xbox will be sorely lacking. Sony will be able to point to all these exclusives that are only on PS5, Microsoft won't be able to do the same because they are on Xbox One and PC. You might want a series x for halo. I want a PS5 for spiderman. But cut out the people who live and breathe this stuff and what do you have to show them? A console full of games that are available elsewhere.

And I didn't mention the PC upgrade cycle because PC gamers are different to console gamers. With PCs you need to upgrade at some point if you want to be able to play games, and that some point is considerably shorter than a consoles now seven year lifespan.

@blinx01 yes I get that, but how do they lock you into their ecosystem?

Through the consoles.

@SuperNintendoMii "But how many of those halo fans already have an Xbox One? "

Well, you are on a site full of said fans, and plenty of them seem very excited about getting the XSX.

Also I mentioned Halo as just an example, there are at lest 3 confirmed launch window titles I am looking forward to, 2 of them happen to be XSX exclusives (Scorn and The Medium.) As a bonus, going to hold back on playing Cyberpunk, Valhalla and Gears 5 until I can play them at their ultimate best.

How many exclusives will get you to buy a PS5? Just the one?

@Tharsman No offense taken! I guess all that marketing bollocks just gets on my nerves a bit.

@Tharsman I will get a PS5 for the next gen games, not current gen games that are backwards compatible.

Spiderman is the only confirmed launch title so far. The exclusives will be coming at a steady pace from Sony, along with the timed exclusives they have lined up. Microsoft has been a lot more forthcoming than Sony, but after this gen that's due to necessity

@GunValkyrie tbh I see PS5 storming ahead and Xbox in the dust. Microsoft have yet to be able to shift consoles outside of North America, with the exception of the UK. I doubt that's going to change.

Microsofts strongest gen is Sony's weakest, and PS3 still outsold them

@SuperNintendoMii Curious, do you have a PS4 or PS4 Pro?

@Tharsman Pro, why?

@SuperNintendoMii Why would you buy that? The base PS4 could run all those games.

@Tharsman because I bought a 4k tv and it could run them at a higher resolution /framerate. Which should be obvious.

What's the point?

@SuperNintendoMii You keep asking why would anyone buy an XSX when those games are available somewhere else. You just answered why. Not going to keep the back and forth posting, just editing this here: mid-gen is different in that it offer even fewer incentives to upgrade, yet you did.

Let's be perfectly honest here: if Spider Man: Miles Morales ran on a PS4, you know you would still get a PS5 to play it.

@Tharsman mid gen refresh is completely different to a new generation

@SuperNintendoMii
They get you in the ecosystem through consoles and PC.
Soon, with xCloud, it will be even more devices.

There will be Series X exclusives but there will be some cross-gen games during the first year or two, just like in 2013-2014. Nothing has changed. What exclusives will PS5 have at launch? Spider-Man rushed half-of-the-content sequel? Astro's Playroom? It's time for some people to finally accept that Sony is not the only company in the world that makes games and that Sony's exclusives aren't the best games in the world either. Series X games show hasn't happened yet and it already looks like Series X has a stronger launch lineup than Sony.

@BlueOcean I'm definitely looking at one or the other consoles at launch but find myself in a weird position. On the one hand there is PS5 and most of the games I want to play on that aren't coming until next year at the earliest. Yet on the other with Series X, even if it has better launch games I can play them on my One X.

@Grot

1. Xbox One has no games (like Uncharted and The Last of Us, the games that everyone desires).

2. Xbox One is inferior because it has a weaker GPU (travels to future and*)

3. PS4 has great games (ports) at launch and Xbox One doesn't have any games (not that I have checked if there are any).

4. People can play all (some) Xbox One X games on a (£1200) gaming PC and it has no exclusives because all (some) games can be played on PC and everybody prefers to play on a gaming PC so what's the point of Xbox One X being more powerful than PS4 Pro? Why does Xbox One X exist if you can buy a gaming PC (that is way more expensive and don't play backwards compatible games)?

5. Bigger blue boxes look nicer on the shelves (as everybody knows).

6. Series X will be held back by Xbox One (that's what I want to believe).

7. *Now, PS5 is not inferior in spite of weaker CPU and GPU because it has a faster SSD (and everybody knows that CPU and GPU don't matter), 3D audio (like Series X) and rumble in the triggers (like Xbox One).

8. PS5 is certainly more beautiful, it's a humped white praying mantis that stares at me while I'm playing. Series X doesn't scream "I'm here! Look at my wings and my lights!" and that's boring.

😁

@carlos82 If you're not sure all I can say don't buy any until you are.

@BlueOcean "3. Blue boxes look nicer on the shelves."

I got to say one thing here, even when I still was cranky at MS:

1) its annoying XBox One boxes are different size from 360 boxes, cant have them in the same shelf (seriously considering printing new cases for all my 360 games....)

2) I do love that XBox One cases are smaller than BluRay cases. It might not sound like much, but i have a ton of games in physical format, and I can fit 6 XBox One games in exactly the same space it takes to store 5 PS4 games, because XBox One cases are slightly thinner.

3) If you were going to go for different case size anyways, I would had loved them go all the way and give us completely square cases that took even less space. Not CD jewelcases (because they too brittle) but something of similar size would had been awesome.

/Inconsequential collector rant over.

@Tharsman well with Series X looking very similar case wise, that won’t be a probably next time, that some good news yeah?

@Tharsman I like the fact that they are smaller than PS5 boxes and also the translucent green colour. I don't have any Xbox or Xbox 360 physical game but I hope that you find a way to deal with that inconsistent collection 😂. Fortunately, new Xbox game cases will be the same size.

@Grot I actually have a huge stack of Switch games (Limited run, what do you do to me!?!?)

I'm thorn on the spines. Uniform fonts make it easier to read, sometimes an xbox case will have a logo that's too tall, and once shrunk to fit its illegible.

My biggest complaint with switch games is i wish they had stuck to 3DS-style boxes, maybe thinner, but not taller or longer. Would make it easy to keep my DS, 3DS and Switch games all together. That case is all full of air, there is no reason for them to be that tall.

I added a few more points to my comment above.

@Grot They should be like Nintendo 3DS cases in my opinion.

EDIT: I see that Tharsman agrees.

@Tharsman @Grot It annoys me that some Switch cases have the titles in capitals on the spine and others don't and that some have "TM" in the middle. I hate all that. These and more inconsistencies exist in Nintendo's older collections but the red and white colour scheme makes it worse. Inconsistencies like some cases having box art on the spine and others plain letters. It's like they don't even care but it ruins a physical collection.

@Grot @BlueOcean I actually would had liked a small rectangular area in the spine being reserved for artwork, even if it was a slice of the front cover (or a ridiculously shrunk version of the front cover....)

@Tharsman Wii U has that and it's much nicer than Switch. Wii U and Xbox One are my favourite boxes ever.

@Grot and what remasters are those?