TheGameThrifter

See, no matter what if people speak with their wallet Microsoft will listen.

@Kaloudz How is that sleazy? Microsoft has conditioned players not to buy games. This is why Game Pass is somewhat hurtful to the industry and it fully depends on what MICROSOFT chooses and who Microsoft chooses to offer money to.
Xbox has a low install base that doesn't like to spend money on games. It's not a difficult choice to not prioritize the platform for many smaller developers.

I own 400-500 movies through Microsoft. They can say they'll support them now, but it probably won't be supported in the future.
They are slowly exiting everything. This really suck's

Uhhh, what? I mean we're in year 5. If it hasn't been utilized that's on Microsoft.
It's always "next year" or wait until next "showcase" or whatever.

lmao! $1000 US is insane!
These were already DOA, but now even more so....wow.

@Coletrain The people that game on console aren't going to want to pay premium prices to switch to PC. Plug and play is what I'm after. I don't want PC stores, PC online, PC hassles.

@Coletrain You're talking about 70% on Xbox first party games. However, Microsoft gets $0 from 3rd party games sold on Steam. Microsoft gets $0 from 3rd party microtransactions sold on Steam.
Also, if it has Steam, they'd have to remove the pay to play online requirements and they'd have to lower Game Pass by $10 a month because PC Game Pass is $10 cheaper due to no pay to play online.

Why would Microsoft (who continually says it needs to make money as a business) all of a sudden be okay with losing billions a year?

If it's not a traditional console I guess I'm out. Been with Xbox since day one. I have zero interest in PC gaming or Windows anything. I don't use play anywhere or game on anything but my console as it is.

@Questionable_Duck I know people who haven't bought a game on Xbox in years because of Game Pass. Obviously there's not a large contingent of people buying games on the platform. Hence why the split on big 3rd party games tends to be 90/10 in favor of PlayStation.
And some developers don't bother with Xbox versions or treat Xbox as low priority.

That means most Xbox owners won't bother with it. Game Pass is cool, but it really conditioned a lot of people to not buy games.

Phil Spencer should not have a job. He can't ship a game to save his life. NOTHING he has announced has been a banger of a game and most of the things he showed at the launch of the Series X have been cancelled and now more studios are being closed with thousands of layoffs.

Gotta get those PS5 users up to speed with Halo I'm sure.
Guessing those twitch based shooter fans on PS5 probably won't stick around on a game with no sprint or aim down sights.

We'll always have Halo 3 though! Such a great time!

Anyone who thinks Xbox hardware is in a good spot right now needs to have a good long look at themselves.
Microsoft has pulled out of multiple territories.
Are they even manufacturing Xbox Series X anymore?
They've stopped making physical games for their own console but not the competition.
They've stopped exclusive games.
They raised prices by $100 across the board on their console.
They're pushing people to cloud and PC.

@Ricky-Spanish Gears and Halo will be a novelty at first, but people will quickly move on back to things like Fortnite, COD and Apex. Gears plays so old now, and I love the franchise, but it's super slow and the multiplayer is really hard to master.
Halo's best days are far behind it, the original Halo games didn't even have a sprint button or aim down sights. People aren't going to stick with that stuff.

We know Indy and Doom sold like trash on PlayStation. Indy was SUPPOSED to be Xbox exclusive as Microsoft amended the contract to make it exclusive. Then, they announced it on PS at a huge event.

Microsoft only has a couple of decent franchises that could even do well multiplat. No on is going to flock to Hellblade 2, Avowed, South Of Midnight, Perfect Dark, Fable ECT

@nomither6 So why ruin your brand over them?

Ninja Theory is at risk.
Compulsion Games is at risk.

Really, almost every studio is at risk with Microsoft at the helm currently.
It wouldn't surprise me if they shuttered Machine Games because Indiana Jones was an expensive IP and it sold terribly.

@Kaloudz Sea Of Thieves sold only 1.4 million on PlayStation. It did over 15 million on Xbox and Steam.

All combined, the games Xbox put on PlayStation did around 4 million, with huge games like Indiana Jones and Doom: The Dark Ages completely flopping on PlayStation.

Microsoft killed their brand for 4 million in software sales.

@Millionski NOTHING is going to stay exclusive and we all know it. The few things currently exclusive were likely in production for years and they wanted to get them out. Avowed, Fable, Gears, Halo and everything in-between will be on PS.

I own 1900 digital Xbox games currently installed on my Series X. I own a further 350 physical games. I can't get anything for my digital library if I sell my Xbox.

Hence why my hope that they stay competitive instead of letting Sony run everything in the high end console space.

Microsoft is a 3 trillion dollar company, you're telling me keeping some exclusives is going to bankrupt them? I don't think so.

Most of us thought they'd use Activision as a multiplatform publisher to help FUND the Xbox exclusives for the rest of us. Now, there's absolutely no reason to own an Xbox.

@Millionski I own a PS5, I always own all the consoles. My point is that I wouldn't have bought a Series X this gen if they were up front about no exclusives and treating PlayStation owners better than Xbox owners.
I'm sure Microsoft is fine losing fans like me who buy all their hardware and thousands of games.

Why do Xbox owners have to wait until PlayStation gets the game to get upgrades on Xbox games? I feel very much like a beta tester.

Microsoft- We're going to keep making consoles and they're going to be awesome! Don't worry about us leaving the console space!

Also Microsoft- We're pulling out of everywhere but the US and UK...

Why would developers support a console that has no reach outside of 2 areas? Microsoft seems to have literally given up.

@Kaloudz Microsoft is posting record profits and laying off 30,000 employees over the last 2 years. PLEASE show me where PlayStation and Nintendo have done that.

@Kaloudz No other console maker is laying off THOUSANDS of people like Microsoft is.

Let's give Phil and Sarah another multi-million dollar bonus though.....

@Millionski It's still nothing new. It's a launcher that launches other launchers lol

@Fiendish-Beaver It's not new at all, it's actually BLOAT added to the OS. It's a launcher for a launcher because Microsoft heard people love launchers!

@Cakefish Backwards compatibility to Microsoft could mean cloud streaming for all we know. That's not backwards compatibility to me. Open platform is just a PC, if it's an open platform then they've given up completely on console, which is a shame.

@Cakefish Rog can't run console games, only PC games. How can a device run both console and PC games? PC is an open device and console is closed.

@Millionski Kojima and Sony are very tight though, and the game is built with a PlayStation proprietary engine. Sony gave the IP back to Kojima, but I doubt there's a rush to get an Xbox version out.

@Cakefish I think people aren't realizing that this is something other PC stores already do?
It's a launcher that launches other launchers...
Unless Microsoft is releasing a full on PC next generation, they won't be adding 3rd party stores IMO

Didn't it take 5 years to get the first one? I can't imagine Xbox is a priority for any 3rd party developer right now.

The funniest thing is that they pushed this exact message almost a decade ago. I said it then and I'm saying it now, most people are only playing console games on a console or PC. I am not playing anything via cloud or on a ipad or whatever. Microsoft is so busy trying to me the master of everything that they are really becoming quite mediocre at a lot of things. Focusing on the wrong things.

@BAMozzy PlayStation still earns around 10 billion more a year than Xbox, despite Microsoft going multiplatform and buying Activision and Zenimax.

If they want out of hardware they should just do it. Realistically they are giving long time fans false hope. A PC isn't a console, slapping Xbox on a VR headset or a PC handheld doesn't make those things an Xbox.

Outside of Forza Horizon 5 selling 2 million and Sea of Thieves selling 1.5 million on PlayStation, what has sold well? Hi-Fi Rush flopped, Pentiment flopped, Indiana Jones flopped, Doom The Dark Ages flopped, Grounded flopped, Age Of Empires flopped.

Realistically the only thing Microsoft did was kill their own brand by doing this. Maybe a short term gain on the books now, but long term without more consoles sold, they will lose out on people paying subscriptions, microtransactions, buying software ECT

They make 1+ billion a year on Fortnite Microtransactions alone. Most of their Game Pass subs are from console. If you sell more consoles you can sell more games, subs and microtransactions.

@Kaloudz I don't see how? PC gamers like to tinker and upgrade. Steam Machines failed, Steam Decks failed. Console gamers want plug and play. Trying to side load things or confuse people isn't going to turn heads, it's going to turn traditional console owners to PlayStation.

Not at all. There's no way this strategy works without exclusive games. I have 0 interest in a PC or playing while I poop on a phone.

@FuzzieGinge88 ZERO HOPE. Racing games get de-listed due to licenses and they expire after 4-5 years. Also, music licenses ECT

@InterceptorAlpha I don't see that happening at all. This story has actually been debunked already unfortunately.

It's interesting to see what Microsoft is doing, but in my opinion their idea is just an Xbox branded PC, console, cloud device and handheld PC. I think their next console will be hardware backwards compatible with everything we have now, but we won't be getting any new BC games.

@InterceptorAlpha So they wouldn't offer any of these games in the store? I mean a lot of the Xbox 360 and Xbox stuff was never digital, and it's highly unlikely Microsoft has a disc drive....

Fable 2 already had enhancements. I find this dubious for the simple fact that if they emulate they need new permissions and licenses from publishers and studios, which was what stopped the backwards compatibility program in the first place. Many of these games have studios or publishers that are now defunct.

I don't think they're talking about anything hybrid. I think they're just talking about options. You'll be able to play PC stuff like with Asus ROG, or you'll be able to play console stuff with their console, or with the Cloud.

There's no such thing as a hybrid because consoles are closed boxes and PC are open. Consoles can't play PC versions of games and vice versa. If they're going hardware backwards compatibility that means traditional console because software emulation requires licenses from every game and or publisher.

This isn't going to be a huge success like Microsoft believes. It has extremely dated and slow paced gameplay. I can't see this franchise doing well longterm because there's just not enough people to play it when you consider how many are on Warzone, Fortnite, Apex, COD..... This game plays ancient in comparison.

How long will we keep getting these articles? Microsoft is a full on 3rd party developer with little to no interest in hardware. They own a lot of IP and studios, of course they are going to be on some pre-order and best selling lists. Just like EA, Ubisoft and others do.

Not sure why this is news?

@Sol4ris We've never seen a strategy where they actually had great exclusive games multiple years in a row. Not since the Xbox 360 days.
As soon as they got exclusives they pivoted to 3rd party. Steam Machines failed, ROG has only sold 500k units to date, even Steak Deck has only done 3.5 million in over 3 years.

Microsoft pivoting is not going to help them in any way outside of the short term gains from porting some old games. Let's face it, MS owns very few IP that sells big. COD, Forza, Fallout, Diablo and Elder Scrolls. Halo is dead, Gears is dead. Putting stuff like Avowed, Hellblade 2, Indiana Jones or even Doom on PlayStation didn't do anything. They killed their brand for a few quick bucks.

@bjs5667 Why would any developers bother with such a limited install base for a console? That's the big problem.

@Kaelliellie Most gamers don't care about Play Anywhere, that has been around since 2016 and isn't widely used. Most people are either console or PC, not both.
Microsoft panicked and changed strategies again and again and again and now people don't trust them

There probably wont even be a next Xbox made by Microsoft, they seem to be going all in on software and services, Sony has an easy victory no matter what and that is Microsoft's own doing

It's always "wait for next year" with Microsoft......

They cater to the PlayStation crowd with physical versions but not their own console user base.
Shows you where their mind is really.

Microsoft charges $600 for a 5 year old Xbox Series X and people think newer tech that is shrunk down is going to be the same as that?
$1000 for the higher end one and probably $750-$800 for the other model.

Exclusive Xbox games.