BacklogBrad

Its probably for the best that xbox didnt end up as publisher. I doubt it would have survived the reset madness. If I was a third party studio, xbox would be the last resort publisher that I avoided unless literally no other option remained.

Suggesting that they would cut spending on 3rd party games for gamepass entirely was a really bad take on the rumor mill's part. But we know xbox "dying" is a reliable way for them to get their clicks in their own greedy quest for profits.

Micron is locking in current prices for 5 year contracts with its business customers. This shows that businesses are betting that 1)prices will get worse and 2) it will take the better part of a decade to normalize.

Having entire stores withheld from the "base" game seems too far. It seems that they just took content out of the base game instead of creating additional content for ultimate. Instead of standard and ultimate editions, they should have been called lite ($79.99) and standard ($99.99).

I have just about enough reward points to get this game but I think I will hold them for another title. Maybe I will pick up the ultimate edition in a few years in a sale.

Dragon age the veilguard and Need For Speed Unbound. Two games i have been wanting to make time for a very long time. I am enjoying both quite a bit.

Still waiting on Diablo 4 to get play anywhere.

This is my most anticipated game right now. I cant wait for this one.

I remember needing a new controller and instead of buying one controller, I impulsively bought a whole Series S that was bundled with a free second controller for $279.

The console has basically doubled in price since launch.

At least the return to exclusives will save them here....current playstation owners are chomping at the bit to pay $570 before taxes to play Clockwork Revolution on a Series S or $820 on Series X.

Im doubting the selling power of even Gta6 at these prices. Will normies without a current gen system swallow this price tag to play the 1 game they want?

We should learn the fate of these studios very soon. I am guessing they announce the plan by the end of their fiscal year, which is 5 days away. That leaves one 'bad news Friday' opportunity. Tomorrow may be the day.

Letting them be independent would be a nice PR move from xboxs perspective but it is like casting them off to a remote island to die. They likely won't last long on their own with the way the industry is. Maybe xbox can trim them down to small support studios for the big IP like Fallout, elder scrolls, etc until the industry turns around.

I support the use of AI. We desperately need to cut development time and budget of games.

I dont think a delay is feasible. Its not a matter of just pushing it back a year or two and suddenly its a $500 product again. 5+ years from now, it will probably still be in the $1000 ballpark.

Its never a good sign when everyone else passes on a project. I imagine Sony was the first one he showed it to and they have approved some out there concepts from him. Im surprised this has survived all the cuts as he makes it sound like its the least safe bet they could possibly be funding.

At least he stopped feeling the need to reassure us that it is actually a videogame. That was another red flag for me.

@Fishmasterflex96 i will continue to disagree. 8 out of 10 should be celebrated. Regardless of what the twitter narrative claims, they are great games. We dont want a world where only safe bets like call of duty and Madden football are made.

@Fishmasterflex96 were clearly in subjective territory here. I loved a lot of their recent games like Avowed, doom dark ages, Indy and starfield. I think they were all amazing AAA games.

@RadioHedgeFund research shows most people wait to buy games at a discount anyway so isn't getting a GP sub out of them at launch a bonus?

Only 36% of pc gamers pay full price for a videogame.

@Fishmasterflex96 how can you judge clockwork revolution already when its not out yet? Your argument is making less and less sense.

Its also not like they set out to make south of midnight in 6 years. Complications arise in nearly all development cycles. This not unique to xbox. It was probably greenest at a lower bidget/time frame.

@Fishmasterflex96 it sounds like you will get your wish and xbox will go back to the days of just making gears,halo and forza because those are the safe bets. Ironically, it was that eras failure that forced xbox to acquire so many studios but here we are going back.

Personally, I am glad Avowed, South of Midnight, hellblade 2, etc were made. They are great games. I would love more of those.

@Fishmasterflex96 that is a wild take. An 8 is considered a great game on most review scales.

@Fishmasterflex96 so 8 out of 10s are average middling games now?

Didn't south of midnight get awards, including a game of the year? Hellblade 2 also won a few awards and nominated in a few others.

Its wild how quickly people went from celebrating the games that gamepass made possible like pentiment, grounded and Hi Fi Rush. They were once called passion projects that otherwise wouldnt be greenlit. Now they get the "slop" tag like they never should have been made. Im glad I got to experience them.

Personally, I like that indie games are getting GP deals that cover a huge part of the dev costs and they dont need to worry as much about overall sales. Its great to get to enjoy those games that I probably wouldnt even know exist without GP.

@CaptainCluck just curious what you think is causing sony and many other publishers to cancel games and close studios if this is specifically gamepass that is causing xbox issues?

Its almost like the entire industry is having problems.

@RadioHedgeFund so xbox should change it because it gave you what you considered a better deal? I dont get why you would want them to take away an option you consider better than buying the new release (which is always an option).

I play a ton of games on gamepass and buy them on sale down the line. I certainly dont want it to change.

@Fishmasterflex96 doesn't change the fact that they are there among the proclaimed slop.

What a clueless take. Someone remind him that 2 out of the 3 games they have released are on gamepass. Are those the mediocre slop that he is talking about? Wasn't last years Game Of The Year a day 1 gamepass game????

He could also use a definition of communism. A voluntary videogame subscription with zero exclusive games does not come anywhere close to communism. There is nothing forcing the subscription on consumers, they can purchase the games like normal. This is a downright ignorant statement that dilutes the horrors of actual communism.

Does he still make sexist and racist remarks towards his employees or has he been cured of those shortcomings?

At least they put the icons for steam and playstation on their own store page for games. Hopefully they have privately backtracked on their stance that putting the platform icons in trailers is a mistake.

@Nall3k they display a please dont leave icon for the one off person that might be jumping ship at the tail end of the console but i gotta research if its play anywhere or which gamepass tier it is currently in?

Fogpiercer looks decent but its similarity to monster train 2 makes it seem a little redundant for a gamepass choice.

What's the point of it on the xbox dashboard? Anyone seeing it is already on a device that has access to buy/play it. How does this attract new xbox users if it is displayed to current xbox owners?

It should be a gamepass or play anywhere icon. I cant think of single way this benefits users to see it on their xbox series dashboard, library, etc.

This is the type of confusion we can expect with their new logo policy and incomprehensible exclusive strategy. Isn't it fun trying to figure out which platform Asha is releasing games on? We cant even assume every one will be xbox anymore.

@NishimaruX the red ring of death guy?

Asha's great reset in action. The new business cards with the all caps XBOX hadnt even been delivered to these studios yet.

#BringBackPhilSpencer

The Abk deal had nothing to do with these potential closures and their closures would probably be old old news if if they hadnt been purchased by xbox. Its industry wide. Consolidation is certainly not the problem. Spending the better part of a decade producing an unprofitable product is to blame.

@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.

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."

I dont see how any of these studios would make it on their own. I also dont see who could or would want to acquire them right now.

It's a tough time to be a mid level developer with niche IP.

When the acquisitions were made, it was a totally different industry. These arent being closed because of mismanagement or because they were bad purchases. The industry is going through a reset.

Way too many games are releasing these days. Not enough people are buying them and they cant all get gamepass deals. The N64 had less than 300 total games released in north America. Steam will get more than that this month. A retraction of the industry was bound to happen and we have been seeing it over the last 3 years.

Asha was getting those cheap w's in early so she could gut the whole division.

It will be just like xb1 days where the same 4 ip are on repeat. But hey, at least gears is exclusive.

It certainly seems like a major restructure is coming soon. Likely in the next 2 weeks as the fiscal year for Microsoft is just about to end.

Having a June showcase towards the end of their fiscal year might be a bad idea. They should be spending this time celebrating the announcements but they have been prepping us for some massive upcoming negative announcements. Every quote from xbox execs since the show has been about how bleak the business is instead of celebrating the future they laid out in the show.

Even though it makes sense to delay away from gta, it will always look like a public admission that their game is inferior to other releases. Ideally, a publisher as massive as xbox would be making games that everyone else gets out of the way of.

This is one of the best xbox studios reviving a loved franchise, so the need to find a safe space with no other big releases is a bad look. I think fable will be great but this release hesitance will probably be in the back of my mind the whole time I play it.

The fiscal year for microsoft ends in about 2 weeks. It sounds like they are preparing us for a massive negative announcement. We should hear very soon what the major shakeup will be. I am guessing studio closure(s) and layoffs are announced very soon.

Since it won't be on gamepass, my interest is very low. I probably won't play this one at all.

This game looks awesome!

The honeymoon phase for the new ceo is over. The meaningless changes like capitalizing the name and declaring xbox reborn were just theater.

Now we wait to see what remains after cuts.

Here are the hard choices she was talking about. Deciding which games and studios are safe enough to keep around.

I dont think selling the games to a smaller audience is going to help any.

Outlets are framing this way more negative than it actually is. Her comments dont come across as being skeptical of the wisdom of the deal. She seems pretty positive about having them under xbox. She is basically just acknowledging that it happened in a different time, by different people, under very different circumstances.

Its not really her place to say whether it was "good deal". I bet microsoft would not approve a sale like that in todays videogame market but it is definitely a positive for xbox that they have them.

@MrStark I certainly wouldnt call this muddy exclusive road map clarity? They're literally saying we dont know which ones but we maybe, might be making more exclusives in the future.

Then there is the whole logo fiasco. Apparently, telling us which platforms a game will be on is not in our best interest as consumers. That's far from clarity.

Nothing attracts new customers like saying our business is not healthy.

Our business is not healthy but hopefully it will be in the future. For upwards of $1000 you can join us.

Instead of paying $800 up front, pay us $25 per month to stream YOUR games in a web browser.

(Monthly price subject to change)

Do they really believe this will lead to people to switch to xbox or choose them over playstation? Even if you believe exclusives will force people to buy an xbox, this has to be the worst possible way to go about doing it. Its anyone's guess which games will actually be an exclusive, not even they know.

This case by case thing is awful. Matt Booty laid out a general criteria but the very first game they announced as exclusive (gears) goes directly against the criteria. They look clueless with this strategy. The Twitter narrative is running xbox

We were better off with all games being multiplat. At least they had a clear competent message. Intentionally misleading people is not going to make xbox appealing.

I am operating under the assumption that 4 out of 5 xbox games will be on playstation. Im not even convinced these two games wont end up on playstation. Unless they are brave enough to pull the trigger on the huge games (fallout, elder scrolls, etc) then this will accomplish nothing but hurt the games and studios unfortunate enough to have their ps5 ports cancelled.