Xbox Wants To Provide A 'Steady Flow Of Great Games' Moving Forward

Nah give my backlog a break 😂

Just bring the stuff that's missing back: Banjo-Kazooie, Conker and Viva Piñata.

A monthly Subscription tends to require at least 1 great product every month to entice people to Subscribe and more importantly, remain subscribed.

What they don't want is people maybe subscribing for a few months a year, binging content, then cancelling until there is a lot more 'new' content to Binge. Therefore, they want to have at least 1 big game every month so that people stay subscribed for the 'next' big game.

Of course, MS's own studio's are the most 'cost' effective for MS but if they don't have a release ready, that forces MS to use 3rd Party Publishers and/or Developers. Xbox Publishing will publish 3rd Party developer games and if those aren't 'ready', they have to negotiate with Publishers to get their games on Game Pass - the more they can fill with their own studio content, the better for MS.

Their first/second party output has gradually improved over the years, compared to where they where 2015-2016 they are nailing it. Improvements can still be made and I'm sure they will, though I suppose with the amount they've spent on it it better had 😅

@BAMozzy
That calculation makes no sense. Most people don't finish every game they are interested in within a month. So, they stay subscribed to play at their own pace. After that, they still are not through with their specific catalogue. Even with much slower release times the pile just keeps getting bigger, or at least stays about the same height.

If you're someone that is at the end of your list, that's frankly your problem, and there is nothing MS or really anyone can do to satiate your appetite. There will always be a minority of people who feel the need to rush. Thus, jump on and offs will always be a thing. I'm sure this is already accounted for.

You can say that again, glad he's realized xbox' near future shortcomings. Even if it's just pr talk.

@BAMozzy A little problem here is that in streaming services it is either a movie or a show. So usually less than 3hrs for a movie and around 10hrs max per season of a show. However, video games often take around 10hrs at least. Also, you can't play a game while eating dinner so at the end of the day I can see myself finishing more than 6-7 big games per year.

@lokozar Its also about bringing 'people' in every month. If you're not into Halo or Forza, then maybe the 'next' month game will convince you.

I also said a couple of months a year, so maybe you play Halo and Forza for a 'few' months and then 'cancel' your subscription because you bought Elden Ring or Dying Light 2 and won't Subscribe until Starfield and maybe jump into some of the GP additions since you left..

Not every game is a 'live' service or something you ever finish anyway. A lot of games can be completed in a 'session' too - I beat The Artful Escape in one sitting, completed the Gunk in 2 sittings - whilst also playing the last bit of Halo's Campaign - which could be beaten in one session too - if you just beat the story. If I want to play a lot of the 'old' games on Game Pass, I can play the 'numerous' ones I bought and still haven't finished, still have 'other' games in my backlog I bought so could cancel Game Pass until MS has their own 'big' games coming.

That money I save by cancelling GPU for say 6-8months a year is another game I could buy - which maybe 'preferable' to paying out on a Subscription that isn't offering me anything 'new' I want to play and it maybe 'cheaper' to pick up a cheap copy of the game(s) you want to 'keep' that's 'cheaper' than paying for the next 3-4mnths+ of Game Pass.

To me, it makes sense to keep my GPU subscription going throughout the year as its also my 'Gold' subscription but I can understand that its not just about the 'subscribed'

Its also about making sure there is a 'big' game every month to attract more people to Subscribe and keep them Subscribed. Not just signing up for a 'month or two' to play a 'specific' game and then cancelling until the 'next' game they want to play comes out.

The fact is that MS 'every' month need a 'big' incentive to either encourage 'new' people to Subscribe and/or 'keep' people Subscribed. The incentive for 'everyone' isn't just their Back Catalogue as some will have 'finished' those (as much as they are going to play) and looking for something 'new'. Not every game is going to appeal either so whilst you may still want to 'keep' playing Halo/Forza etc, others may well be 'finished' and wanting something 'new'.

Point is, they still need 'big' games every month to attract more and more 'new' subscribers 'every month' and entice people to stay subscribed with the promise of 'great' games coming every month.

"Xbox Wants To Provide A 'Steady Flow Of Great Games' Moving Forward"...
and I want a meaningless, but fun, night of passion with Shakira and Salma Hayek.
But both scenarios look slightly doubtful at the moment 😆

In all seriousness, I think we'll actually be getting closer to the future generation of consoles before Microsoft's studio acquisitions bear substantial fruit on a regular basis.
But, it's ok, I'll wait 👍

Selfishly I kind of like the cadence — Sony has the first half of the year covered with exclusives and Xbox has the back half. Spring and summer I play my PS5 and barely turn on my Series X; fall and winter all the Xbox exclusives hit and I barely touch my PS5.

That said Xbox has been stepping it up. They’re already miles ahead of where they launched this generation, when it almost looked like they were unprepared due to lack of exclusives. Looking forward to seeing this momentum continuing to build, even if it means I have to start using both consoles year-round.

I'm not worried about ms first party devs and line ups. I'm more worried about third party devs once again not making games for xb. Squarenix(and others) not making games for xb, some of the smaller AA games not making it to the xb, etc.

Ps pays for exclusivity, so to counter that, ms bought devs. It is, what it is.

I feel like this will be the case in a year or so.

less talk and show more results. I feel like it always has been just talk the last couple of years with Xbox while the competition just release their games in a steady flow. It's annoying honestly.

@Rural-Bandit At this point I just think this hypothetical future will come in the end of this console generation, which is just sad because we already had one whole console generation of nothing.

Not having seven 600 man studios working on one big "AAAA" 10 year live service FPS title would help with this.

What we're seeing is just the result of 2015-2017, when Microsoft was literally not making any games outside of ForzaGearsHalo. The studios they bought aren't ready to ship anything right now, Microsoft would normally be finishing up whatever other games they were working on (notice that Sony has shipped two big games back to back, and games take an average of around 5 years to finish). This lull has been coming for a while, so it's not the end of the world, and next year looks a lot better.

@lokozar That's what I think. Game Pass is a long-time service. You don't start and end a game every month. It's not worth it if you only play a single "infinite" game such as Sea of Thieves but if you play big and small games, games as service but also traditional games, it's always good value even if not every month gets a AAA addition. This applies to new subscribers even more because their backlog will be even bigger than people that were subscribed since the beginning. Game Pass is great value unless the majority of your playing time is dedicated to the same game.

For the approx £2.50 a month I got for 3 years ( arg vpn) it's well worth it even if they don't have aaas monthly for me, I pay netflix approx £4 and hardly touch it at least with gp I'm getting my money's worth and then some

Doesnt xbox have like 5X the teams especially after the acquisitions. Not sure how they only manage one or 2 titles a year

@lokozar halo was a flag ship game and campaign was 8 hours. Netflix shows are longer. Unfortunately the poster was spot on with their analysis and Xbox themselves here agree. They need a constant stream of games. Good games. With the occasional monster
Game mixed in. They want to appeal to all gamers. Not just ones that like 30 plus hours on a game. They’ve moved so people can play on devices whilst they sit and watch TV. Competing with the mobile games. THey know times have changed. They are doing the right things IMHO. We just need to see how good they are at seeing more and more good games in a continual stream. Not a continual stream of big named games that disappoint. We haven’t see disappointing games yet. But who knows when the volume cranks up

They had a nice stint last year with 1st party stuff from July-December, but the first 6 months of 2022 is looking barren.

Obviously we've had big 3rd party releases such as Mass Effect Legendary, Rainbow Six Extraction, Hitman Trilogy and Guardians of the Galaxy so far for 2022, but it's day one stuff that makes the service the most attractive, not so much the older games.

Well, they could start by giving us a release date for the bloody Goldeneye remaster that we all know about through recent leaks. Wolfenstein 3 info would also be nice sometime this century, as well as Halo Wars 3.

People want good games, and good games take time to make, but people don't want to wait for them. Yet if devs were to rush games then everybody will verbally attack them for rushing it. I think Microsoft has made all the right moves recently, and have released some big games on Game Pass on day one last year.

They've acquired some devs, but development takes time, so Microsoft has invested a lot of money to bring quality games on Game Pass to help people pass the time until then.

Personally my backlog is crazy, with so many games having been released, and I've never experienced a gaming gen where I've got so many quality games to play and for only a subscription fee that pays for itself through Microsoft rewards.

What's to really hate?

@themightyant One of Microsoft's big problems is they are so tied to tradition, namely about E3 and the holiday season. If you look at what Xbox Game Studios games have released since 2020, they could easily have delayed a load of those games to create a more consistent release schedule. For example there didn't need to be Grounded early access, Flight Sim PC, Battletoads and Tell Me Why all release in the space of a month.

Even just looking at 2021 releases, the most obvious delay that would've helped both a more consistent release schedule and improved the game itself is that Infinite should've been delayed to 2022.

Makes sense to keep things spread out so as not to cannibalise their own sales, but of course that means if two of their studios are working on similar games (particularly after the Activision buyout comes off) then some games are going to have to be moved away from the lucrative release times to make room.

Though there's still plenty of big Xbox games to play. Elden Ring just came out, and seems to be doing gangbusters.

Don't wanna be that guy but they should already have a steady flow of great games they've been doing it 20 years.