All Xbox needs to do to keep me happy as a customer is give me a new Forza Horizon game or expansion every year. That’s it, that’s all I really need from them.
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The biggest problem with Xbox isn’t the exclusives, but rather the games that are released on all platforms except Xbox.
For example, Jaleco Sports: Bases Loaded II is being released for Switch 2 and PS5, but not for Xbox. Why? I don’t know, but for some reason, many smaller developers simply don’t see the console as viable, even though more than 30 million consoles have been sold.
Perhaps the rules for developing for the console are bad? I’m an indie developer, and on Steam I can release games with achievements and leaderboards without needing to be a company, for example.
Let’s not forget that Xbox almost missed out on Capcom’s Marvel collection because of the rules.
That’s what’s discouraging about the platform, seeing Steam, Switch, and PSN receiving smaller games while Xbox is ignored. I think it’s urgent that the platform needs better treatment for small developers and to reduce any obstacles to facilitate game releases on the platform.
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That’s interesting because that’s the opposite experience I’ve had with xbox. Ever tried to get someone to help with a deployment issue on Sony or Nintendo? It’s not a great experience. I remember once a co-worker made a snarky remark about something minor about id@xbox on twitter. Two minutes later he got a dm from someone at id@xbox asking how they could help. Every company has their strengths and weaknesses, but Microsoft generally is good to great about developer relations.
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I actually like what I think Xbox under Phil was aiming for. I really think they were more focused on the industry as a whole and trying to bring a single standard format for gaming like we have for movies and films. I imagine if windows phone was still around the push for windows as the gaming format would have been much easier. So, the anywhere program certainly is good I just think it works better for publishers than platform holders.
The logos thing I think as well would make more sense in an environment where everything is under one format.
marketing your product, I think is enough if you actually market it.
But that happens with some games being on Xbox first before launching on PS5 or Switch too.
There’s no denying that it happens the way you say more often, but it’s always a matter of resources that studios have and what they prioritize because it they think it would be better.
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That’s always been a problem. Not just with Xbox. It’s like the biggest pain point of consoles in general. Game releases are so freaking fragmented. How do we get a situation where Octopath Traveler 1 was on everything but PS and Octopath Traveler 2 was on everything but Xbox… how is that a thing?? And we know for 1 at least it wasn’t an “specifically not Playstation” deal because Xbox doesn’t do that and Square wouldn’t agree to that. Indies (third parties in general) go where they think their audience will be, where there’s a money deal, and where they have the resources to port to. Console development is a more involved ordeal than PC (namely Steam) because there’s more protocols to follow. More safety regulations and what not.
So Nintendo is a massive toss-up right? Especially back before the Switch. What third party support they get and when is always changing. Xbox has always had a smaller install base than Playstation and worse relations (as a newer platform) with publishers and devs. Maybe worse isn’t a good word, but less longevity and PS is the bigger gaming brand. That said Xbox has done a really strong job with ID@Xbox to improve things with independent studios and overall they’ve done a lot to build better business partnerships with publishers. Ideally this will improve even more with the changes to the dev environment to merge it with windows, getting rid of the NDAs and making the Xbox development guide transparent (so anyone can just look up the rules beforehand), and the benefits on Playfab. Games probably will still sometimes just skip a native Xbox version because they sometimes still just skip a native Playstation version despite it being like twice the install base supposedly. Heck, Stalker 2 was apparently a timed Xbox exclusive literally just because the devs WANTED to get the game on Xbox (like they just liked Xbox personally) so they went online to reddit, found an old Phil email or something, and got that ball rolling.
I think as @Haven would say, not having a universal format has just created this problem with console gaming. Way back in the Sega days each version of a game would have slightly different content entirely. Now the major platforms are all very similar and I think devs and publishers want to put their games everywhere and ship one version across multiplatform. But it’s not like just making the game once, doing some simple optimizations, and then being done with it. We don’t know exactly why every game that skips Xbox on launch skips Xbox. It can be anything from the install base, to problems developing for Xbox, to even like problems developing for Playstation (like the devs forced themselves to develop for PS being it does have more potential customers, but that’s proved difficult and cost them too many resources so they have to hold off on using resources for Xbox). Xbox is continously making it easier, more transparent, and more valuable to develop & optimize games for Xbox platforms though.
Most games only sell to a fraction of the totoal userbase, even in the so-called glory days of the PS1 & PS2. Exclusives do have a big role to play in making people want to pick your product & the prestige they bring to the brand.
SONY always looked to block games from coming on rival consoles for a set period of time, Sony did the likes of that trick with Tomb Raider 2/3/4 on the PS1 but it’s not like Xbox or Nintendo haven’t played that trick too. SONY are just better at it.
I get you, but Quick Resume is hard to sell to the public compared to having a game with ‘ONLY ON’ or ‘Xbox Exclusive’ on it. I think VRR is one of the best features of the Series X & Xbox’s full support for HDMI 2.1 is better than the PS5, but it’s hard to get that point across compared to a massive AAA game being a console exclusive
You need a mixture of great system features, hardware, exclusives & also good PR.
Stuff like VRR or Dolby Vision and whatnot are probably not good system sellers because most people don’t have high end 4k TVs and so they won’t even notice. Lots of people still playing on old 1080p sets or on cheap 4k walmart Tvs that barely support anything anyway. So having “Only on Xbox” is definitely a bigger draw than anyting else to be honest.
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None of it changes the fact though that people may not upgrade due to just playing forever games, and when they do if they’ve got a PS4 they’ll get a PS5 or PS6.
Either they want to keep their digital library, or if they’re casual and buy one game a year it’s just keeping with what they know and what their friends have.
(Admittedly the naming convention with Xbox doesn’t help lol)
The truth is console users are pretty static, Series and PS5 are lagging a bit behind last gen as many users are staying on older generations, but the share is mostly staying the same as the One / PS4 gen - the only real growth potential is to go after new customers, the console market is stagnant and not really going anywhere, a few “I’m throwing my Xbox in the bin” tantrums (often by people who don’t really play in Xbox anyway) aren’t changing that.
The only difference I see is that instead of saying “we’ve got you console people, we’re going after other customers too” the new regime will say “oh you’re so important console people” while continuing to chase new customers with Helix etc
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I think there is a marketing angle for xbox being for power users and more enthusiast. All the features mentioned above plus play anywhere. Yeah, you don’t need quick resume on a ps if all you do is play fortnite. and play anywhere and helix provides this bridge into pc gaming which in my opinion is the most enthusiast you can get.
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It’s could get even smaller, but the cost to make games get bigger. Sony and Nintendo solution to that is squeeze more money from existing customers. Not great for consumers but it seems like that’s what console warriors want. The privilege to pay more but getting less.
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Yeah, except PC has more gamers than console. Like there are more PC gamers than the entire console market combined and it certainly dwarfs individual console platforms. If anything consoles are the more niche of the two enthusiast would also be an interesting word. Someone who ONLY plays fortnite can happily do so on their mobile phone or their work/school laptop if it’s good enough or even a cloud gaming subscription. They aren’t going to drop hundreds of dollars on a gaming console and lock themselves into an ecosystem. They also aren’t going to switch for a better graphics experience or even exclusive content in Fortnite if they’re already locked into a console. Heck, they don’t have a real reason to upgrade from PS4 to PS5 or One to Series.
I think the idea of appealing to the public is counter to the reality of consoles at all and that’s kinda the problem. The public doesn’t just not care about exclusives, they never cared and increasingly care less. Consoles are a niche. Nowadays most new hardware sales are people upgrading. Every platform is seeing lower sales for newly released hardware than their peaks, and they’ve really just stabilized at the current numbers they have. PC, mobile, and Cloud are all growing, not console. Gamers are fixated on exclusives as the “only way” because they “have worked before”, but no not really. They really haven’t. The general public doesn’t care about consoles. If anything I’d say only enthusiasts only care about them. Yeah, most games aren’t doing Resident Evil Requiem numbers every game, but exclusives have a lot more weight on them than most games. For non gamers the cost of an exclusive is the cost of that exclusive + the cost of buying into the ecosystem (hardware and subscriptions) and they aren’t going to pay that at this point (the ones who will did so a decade ago). For existing console gamers the cost of an exclusive is the cost of their entire library (switching primary platforms) or it means dropping hundreds of dollars for a deadweight system that they don’t plan to use after finishing one or two games. They largely aren’t going to do that.
Exclusives don’t really have a “tangible” benefit. They aren’t skyrocketing console numbers into the stratosphere (they never did) and aside from Nintendo they don’t sell to a large percentage of gamers that are on the platform. I think it’s just prestige. They keep a subset of vocal gamers happy and make the brand LOOK strong.
Yeah I think the marketing will zero in on ways to make the brand look strong (keep existing gamers and vocal parts of the industry happy) while also finding more meaningful and tangible growth elsewhere.
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Xbox unfortunately isn’t dissimilar. They’ve raised prices as well and seemingly abandoned subsidizing hardware. They’ve generally been slower (I think when you control for the lower costs of production for Nintendo hardware and development of Nintendo games they’re probably the worst offender, but they’re all bad offenders right now and for the “premium” Series X, PS5, and Pro those sticker prices are so so much worse), but Xbox is still focused on squeezing it’s “mature” static console consumer base. Hopefully a change does occur. I really hope Helix has multiple SKUs & price points.
I believe consoles on all platforms are priced what the current political and economic climate push them to be. At least with Microsoft one doesn’t have to buy a console to participate in gaming. For some families they can only afford a single computer in the home. Microsoft does provide a way for them to participate in xbox gaming. It can be as simple as a cloud subscription.
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I agree completely. It seems like consoles are just done subsidizing, so they’ve risen with conditions to at least keep cost. Xbox is great in offering different options beyond the console. It is as cheap as Game Pass essential now to get into cloud gaming and that includes a hefty list of games you can buy (instead of relying on the subscription library). They’ve also done a lot of work in making Xbox Cloud Gaming accessible on any device with an internet connection (unlike say Playstation) including native apps directly on TVs. But that’s also one of the things people have complained about. Even before “This is an Xbox” started people were like, “Xbox is killing the console by having cloud gaming.” 
. Gamers are a hard lot to balance.
There kept being problems with pricing, but if they could pull it off I think a $200 box primarily optimized for cloud gaming but that could also play Xbox One era games and lower spec games natively would be amazing. Even without that cloud is definitely a growth sector. It’s just a matter of Xbox doing meaningful marketing to tell non gamers that without angering existing console gamers, some of whom genuinely just see cloud gaming as an attack on them personally.
What you need is differentiation. Xbox and PlayStation are too similar. Exclusive games can help but they are not the answer. It’s more like when apple went into the mobile phone business. They did not try to be like the windows phone on the market. They differentiated their product using the experience they gained from the iPod and so delivered a different kind of phone from the market leader. The same for Nintendo they tried competing with Xbox and PlayStation and in the end did something that differentiates them. I think this was the case for the 360 as well which started modern day gaming with online, achievements, marketplace, party chat all of which dazzled the gaming community. Asha will have to come up with something that differentiates the Xbox in a big way from PlayStation and while exclusive games can help it will not solve it.
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Exclusives count for a lot that’s why even the likes of Netflix, Disney spend billions on exclusive content only for their streaming platforms & not to share with others
What part of Cloud is growing? Because Xbox Cloud gaming is behind the Game Pass paywall & I don’t see Gamepass subs growing at anything like the rate of Microsoft’s cloud.
PC is growing, but most people in my circles with a PC: it’s basically a laptop notebook that could barely run Xbox One games
For mobile, I very much doubt the entitled teenagers of today are going to turn their backs on TikTok or the simple, cheap mobile games, to buy £70 games or even subscribe to Game Pass to play games Xbox & Sony make on their mobile.
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Like I said it’s a mixture of items but exclusives count.
I feel what a lot of people miss here is its all very well going after the light or casual users on their mobiles & what not. At the end of the day its the die hard gamer you need to please & focus on, they’re the ones who buy the hardware regardless & also far more importantly are the ones who buy a number of full price games each month. This was a lesson for everyone to see with Kinect… great for sales & casuals, the ones who play a game every Christmas or birthday , terrible for the core gamer
Xbox should look to bring back some big exclusives even if they are timed, get the BC team back making for more old games playable (which to their credit it looks like) fix the pricing of Game Pass & for me look to bring back the likes of Xbox Arcade & really sort out their PR
With SONY PlayStation we get big Black friday deals, sponsorship of Champions League TV spots while all we get from Xbox is a tiny logo on Luke Littler’s t-shirt. While I see Microsoft sponsor the NFL & F1 Mercedes team but no Xbox logo
When you’re a distant 3rd you need to work & try much harder
But the core gamer market hasn’t grown in a decade or two, and the split is roughly the same for the last two generations (since the disastrous One launch and gamers locking in to a given ecosystem due to their digital library and friends being on it).
The vast majority of those gamers, when they finally upgrade (as more than ever many are staying on previous generations due to price / cost of living plus the new gens offer nothing revolutionary) they’ll most likely stay on the same platform.
So spending loads on keeping exclusives, subsidising hardware or huge marketing campaigns likely isn’t worth it for the few million consoles at most it might help sell.
Whereas PlayStation gamers buying Xbox games helps give Xbox money to put games on Game Pass, which benefits us.
New markets and customer bases offer opportunities for growth so are always going to be a focus - the only difference is this CEO will stroke the egos of the console gamers to keep them happy while continuing the same avenues.
Sony do the same - say what people want to hear like “we believe in generations” then do whatever is best for their business
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Hoe exactly do exclusive games count. Xbox has always had exclusive games that hasn’t made them number one. It helps but to make a difference you have to go beyond just games and really introduce exclusives that change the experience and bring a differentiation. For example, coke and Pepsi may look the same, but they are so different. Another thing is games in the past were different on different consoles. A Batman game on Nintendo would be different for example on a Sega system because the consoles were not similar in many ways, so ports were not the norm. I kind of think that is the kind of differentiation you need. Exclusives today seem more perception based than ever which helps but is nothing like the past.
I think the PC hybrid idea is a breath of fresh air that seems new and might bring in that definition that defines Xbox differently from PlayStation.
Of this I agree. However, these are services and streaming platforms. Exclusives work well with this also these services are pretty much everywhere and don’t require a box.
I do think the demand for cloud gaming is there unfortunately I don’t think the tech is where it needs to be economically viable to support the demand.
It never hurts to try Game Pass on mobile phones some of this Gacha games are very big on there. Genshin impact and many more. It’s one of the reasons I think a handheld would be good seeing the phones in the market are not windows based.