Developing For Xbox Can Be Difficult, So Microsoft Is Taking Major Steps To 'Remove Barriers'

"The days of players being locked to a closed-off console ecosystem are starting to feel antiquated."

That's right and players will benefit the most of it. Next generation, Xbox ports won't be necessary. All games are made for Windows and Xbox Magnus will just play those with no specific build or Windows version like on Xbox One and Series X|S.

It is honestly insane this wasn't already freely available.

But seems like usual, a 1 step forward after taking 10 backward by Microsoft.

Title is a bit misleading... It's not development that is difficult, it's publishing. At least that's my understanding of prior examples and what this document would address.

It’s good Xbox is opening up as I think it is right for them.
But I’m so glad Sony still makes console exclusives and of course Nintendo. They are the only two that get the very best from their respective consoles and don’t end up the Xbox Jack of all trades and not the master of the series x.

@themightyant while I did hear about that I'm having hard time believing it. MS bread and butter is literally writing software and offering services (based on well defined abstractions and APIs).
It would be baffling if they would not be producing leading SDK and dev tools.

@Cikajovazmaj Indeed. Most developers say it's very easy to develop for Xbox, it's just that Sony fans can always find mediocre developers complaining, like you can find the butthurt indie bashing Xbox because they didn't strike a Game Pass deal.

oh! that's good: thank you for letting us know.

One of the bad things about Steam, or other stores like Android, is that they are full of thousands of junk games, and hundreds of titles are released every day that can't even be called games. I think it's good that they make the process easier, but I believe that some barriers should be maintained to prevent the Xbox Store from becoming a dumping ground xD

They are already laying down the groundwork for their next console 👍

"Simply put, the days of players being locked to a closed-off console ecosystem are starting to feel antiquated, and it seems Microsoft is feeling that too."

Truthfully, I don't think that Microsoft necessarily feel that way, but their hand has been forced into going multiplatform with all their titles.

People keep suggesting that Microsoft are being visionary, and I'm not so sure that is the case. Had the Series consoles sold in the same numbers as the PS5 (and probably without the S, for that matter), then Microsoft would probably be viewing this just as Sony are. Sony still regard exclusives to be important, just as Nintendo do. There are two reasons that Microsoft view this differently now, firstly they have sold insufficient consoles to make exclusivity viable, and then, partly due to the insufficient console sales, they are being forced by the likes of Hood into seeking unrealistic revenue targets meaning they basically have to seek that revenue on other platforms. It's not a question of choice, Microsoft have been forced into this position.

If the Series consoles had sold sufficient numbers, Microsoft would be doing what Sony is doing, which is to keep their games exclusive to their own consoles for at least a year (probably with the exception of Live Service games, which need to be everywhere early doors).

I really do not foresee Sony dropping their walled-garden for the next generation, and indeed, Microsoft's drive into multiplatform may well mean that Sony will double down on keeping their games exclusive for even longer, partly to keep them off PC, which in turn means they won't be playable on the PCBox, but also because Sony still believes (rightly, in my opinion) that exclusives can drive console sales.

Whilst making it easier for developers to get their games on the Xbox is a good thing, I think Microsoft will be fighting an uphill battle with the PCBox, because whilst it will be a premium product, it will come with a premium price, and significantly it will not come with any exclusives. Indeed probabilities are that the PCBox will cost more on its own that the SteamBox and the PS6 will combined, and the PS6 will come with exclusives included...

I hope this means we get more games. Xbox needs more solid games.

@InterceptorAlpha I don't think PlayStation and Nintendo's game publishing documents are freely available, either. Hard to say that this is another one of those "one step forward 10 steps back" situations when there aren't really any console manufacturers that did this up until now. This was pretty much just a Steam/PC-only thing.

@Fiendish-Beaver While the argument you're making does make a lot of sense, I somewhat disagree with what you're saying, simply because Microsoft was planning a lot of these multiplatform things from the very beginning.

In summer 2010, Microsoft made an internal document about its plans for the Xbox 720 (a.k.a. the Xbox One) that was leaked online a few years later. In it, Microsoft said a lot of the things that they're saying now: namely, that they wanted Xbox on as many screens as possible through the cloud and whatnot. Keep in mind this was made during the height of the Xbox 360 gen, when Xbox was on top of the world. And yet, Microsoft was still pursuing this ecosystem-type approach.

Microsoft was never gonna copy Sony's business model, no matter how many consoles the Xbox sold (ironically, they were expecting the Xbox One to sell more than 100 million units, despite this multiplatform approach). They may not have put games on PlayStation and Nintendo consoles, sure, but they were always going to make Xbox more than just a console brand. They were internally pushing the idea of "you don't need an Xbox to play Xbox games" roughly 15 years ago.

Here's the source for the document btw: https://www.businessinsider.com/microsoft-xbox-720-presentation-2012-6#-8

"Simply put, the days of players being locked to a closed-off console ecosystem are starting to feel antiquated,"

It doesn't, at all, it just feels bad if the platform you're on is being abandoned.

We definitely needed another 10,000 shovel ware games per year clogging up the Xbox store. Just like Steam. Hoorah!

Why would anyone want to develop for Xbox going forward?

Times change tech moves on its all good for us and the next step stay the course ppl.