Xbox CSO Shuts Down Rumour About Exclusives, Insists They'll Happen Every Year

The number of social media and Reddit posts that make no sense is pretty unbelievable — it really feels like an army of bots and anti‑Xbox fanboys are piling on and saying anything

Don’t come telling me it’s Xbox’s fault, because it clearly isn’t.
The current period, with possible studio closures, probably encourages this kind of behavior, but let me remind you that it’s happening everywhere in the industry — and it doesn’t justify trolling or spreading fake news.

Asha is turning Xbox into a tighter, more efficient business so it can be sustainable in the long term, something that, surprisingly, Nadella agrees with in his last interview, as he usually is seen as a short-term benefits businessman. Xbox makes a fortune but it's also bleeding money. That's why they need to take hard decisions. Xbox is going back to being a differentiated platform with exclusives as the others, which means they are keeping the studios and IPs that are more successful and influential as would do any other. It's the only way forward.

Like Gary Barlow says "have a little patience" they are hardly going to reverse decisions a week later give them time to see how it all works out then see where we are at.
I suppose it's big news in gaming now and people making up stories about it will get the attention!

~$400+ million to develop E-Day and they’ve chosen to limit it to two platforms; one where the series has not historically had a huge following and the other which has been conditioned to play things on gamepass in lieu of actually buying it. Yeah, everything’s fine.

@fatpunkslim @Skinny-Pete The colossal amount of negative rumours about Xbox is absolutely insane and not just now but for years, almost every day. The hilarious thing is that some people pay more attention to them than to the real facts, and when you put them on the table they just ignore them.

For example, why people believe that Gears of War E-Day cost $400m and that Xbox is bringing it to PS5 next year? If the real budget is revealed and is lower, will they post it fifty times like they posted the fake one? They won't listen to anything other than rumours. If this game succeeds as I think it will, will they admit it or blurt out any kind of absurd explanation like with Forza Horizon 6 without PS5 and even without Game Pass (in early access)?

The important thing here is that this is a new CEO and that Nadella, surprisingly, is backing this long-term reboot up. You can't base your predictions on what Phil Spencer or Sarah Bond would do! Then, they say elsewhere that they want Xbox dead and believe that Sony has followed a coherent strategy this generation... and everything starts making sense. 😁

They finally realized they need exclusives but now they will have less studios next generation.

@themightyant I am trusting Asha until she gives me a reason not to. She hasn't lied yet.
Where as Phil Spencer and his team lied a lot. They lost all trust because of lies.

@PWR3700
Do you remember Asha's memo about 3rd party exclusives?
Why own and operate a studio that takes 6 years to make a AA game when they can just money hat similar games and save a ton of money? They will still have a lot of those smaller exclusives, but won't have to pay for the entire studios for 6 years to make a game.

That clown writing articles on the other site still think Xbox took a battering? lol

Historically xbox does not stick to a plan long enough to see if it will be successful so I will forgive anyone for thinking they are reversing course already (it will inevitably happen).

But this muddy mess of an exclusive strategy is not the answer. They cant go in to details about which are or are not exclusive because they have no idea themselves. The closest thing to criteria for an exclusivity "plan" was big multiplayer games would be multiplat but they broke it with the very first announcement (gears). They are clearly making it up as they go. The messed up part is they expect us to celebrate this chaotic "strategy."

XBox are working overtime to stay in the news headlines... But all of the comments and statements like these aren't really giving anyone any clear answers, and if anything are just further confusing the issue.

I still can't get my head around "we're going back to exclusives" but also "btw, Senua 3 and State of Decay 3 will be coming to PS5"... I guess those deals must have been in place already? But it seems so random to me.

I hope XBox can get past their mixed messaging and show some real focus. Asha has real potential to do something good here, but the odds really are stacked against her... even if XBox was riding high, the RAM & SSD pricing are really going to screw up the RRPs for the next gen of consoles. I think we're going to see the real impact of this with the price of the Steam Machine in the next few months. Rumour has it that it could be just shy of $1000 🫪

@Bob_Tempura I thought that those deals were already done and were not easy to cancel. Now we know that Ninja Theory is on thin ice. We also know that State of Decay 3 was in development hell for years, it was announced in 2020, but I hope that the reason for being multiplatform is either that it's a single and multiplayer game like 2 or that the deal was also done, meaning I don't want the game cancelled nor the studio closed.

Nadella acknowledges the components crisis because he was asked about that and Xbox in the interview, as was Asha. He said that it's real but temporary, which is the most positive thing I've heard about the crisis so far.

“There are no conversations and have been no conversations…”

So the plan is the plan until it isn’t the plan. I think we’ve come to understand that about Xbox.

@TheGameThrifter the problem with money hatting is the 3rd party studios have no desire to go down that path, especially on xbox. Even the vast ps5 userbase is not enough to justify exclusivity deals. The longtime playstation stalwart Square enix has said it can no longer financially continue with exclusivity. Xbox would have to pay way more than sony to restrict a game to their smaller userbase and the kinds of games they will be able to fund wont bring people to xbox.

Its extremely hard to build a successful IP with multiplat releases in todays gaming space. Doing so with an xbox exclusive would be nearly impossible. Nobody wins.

I am in full support that a platform needs exclusive content to add value and survive. The main question will always be if the Xbox fanbase will show up and buy and support the games because the last decade has said no. See if any of the recent news has made people open their eyes to the harsh realities of not supporting games.

The ones who come here to Boo Hoo over Xbox exclusives not going to Sony's AAA starved game console should look closer to home, I expect the new Xbox team looked very carefully at what the Sony fanboys were up to lately and I'm sure their Number 1 comment of concern was the. "What's the point in buying an Xbox if all the games are PlayStation"
Well that problem is now fixed so well done to the new Xbox team.

It’s simple, I will be playing Gears e day and clockwork on series x, via GPU.

If you want to play the games get an Xbox or PC or go cloud gaming.

It’s no different to wanting to play Wolverine or Splatoon Raiders.

No, actually it’s better as you have more options than just a console.

I mean this co fusion is of Xbox's own making. They've been flip floping on so many topics its kinda sad tbh. So not surprised that people are questioning and second guessing every statement.

@Skinny-Pete Am still convinced Gary Barlow was in Corrie 🤣🤣