I hope it does well for their sakes, but historically I have NOT seen this particular sub genre of multiplayer Co-op do well. In fact the only success I can think of is monster hunter. All the other games I know of either have shutdown or effectively died or switched to a single player offline model. Three player co-op especially seems cursed. This also feels like a game that should’ve launched like 7 to 8 years ago. This feels like something from the late PS4/Xbox One era. God speed I guess. It feels like Sony keeps chasing these live service trends too late, but hey maybe they’ll get lucky. Maybe it’s the right time and they’ve got the right game and it’ll blow up.
Did Assassin’s Creed Shadows and Star Wars Outlaws do well on Switch? I think those games demonstrate that high quality current-gen ports are possible. The question is whether it’s worth it to put in the effort.
Nowhere did I say they weren’t. Read what I said.
That art style 
I don’t know man. I could be wrong but to me this looks like Exhibit A of “Who asked for this”. I doubt even big Horizon fans are looking at this and being like, Yes, this is the direction I was hoping this franchise would go.
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I like co-op games but there’s something about Horizon that really didn’t need the cartoonification, in my view. I don’t dislike the style, nor the genre, and I don’t dislike the series, but there’s something about the story/characters that is somehow amplified by this styling that… leaves me very cold.
I think it’s something to do with the world of Horizon feeling much less rich and complex than it should, somehow, and this - perhaps unfairly - exacerbates that. I can’t really explain it. I’m not saying a cartoony game can’t be rich, nor do I hate co-op on some bullshit principle - I’m not 12 years old - it’s more the combination accentuates something in the series already. I dunno…
I’ve recently compared HZD2 to Avowed, and now i’ll compare it to Rogue Trader. Sure, they’re all different games with different strengths, but Avowed and Rogue Trader feel far richer and more alien than HZD does. There’s something uncomfortably domestic about a post-apocalyptic world, it’s bizarre.
It should get enough third party especially when you consider with this plan they intend to be available to close to 3.6 billion gamers and Xbox really do go out to developers. I don’t think it is aimed at casual market. They will aim at reaching the casual market through the devices the casual already have like devices that support streaming and for those that have PCs. The series X/S will still be available as options.
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This year is crazy stacked.
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I definitely wish Microsoft marketed, and understood, consumer facing businesses better, but Xbox has significantly improved its marketing as this gen progressed. I ultimately think they held back too much at the start from what feels like fear of mismarketing again like they did with the Xbox One and being made fun of appealing to non-gamers. This gen they launched the Series X and S simultaneously and I really think they should’ve focused marketing for the X on gamers and the S on non gamers to maximize growth. Position the X for gamers looking to upgrade and position the S as the perfect home entertainment device to introduce people to gaming. Imo the Series S would’ve done far better than the Xbox One as your “all in one entertainment”. It’s smaller, cheaper, and now we’ve got all the streaming apps + a full web browser on Xbox.
As for overall sales though, what I really see is that despite less reason to upgrade (even now last gen is still supported by the biggest games including COD), awful supply chain & stocking issues since COVID, and increased prices the Xbox Series consoles have kept pace with the Xbox One consoles in terms of sales. The PS5 has also done the same amidst the same. The Switch 2 is faltering a bit but also looks to be doing relatively the same as the Switch (it’s at least already surpassed the lifetime WiiU sales I think… 
). As in… nothing has changed. That WiiU comment is even deceptive. Nintendo was still doing well enough with their 3DS sales, and the Switch effectively merged their handheld and homeconsole consumer base. Not a single company’s hardware sales are at their peak, but all are remaining stable.
That said nothing is changing. The market isn’t growing and consoles aren’t even really stealing market share anymore no matter how much the internet pretends they are on vibes. I think that’s what Microsoft and Xbox see as the failure of this generation or maybe just the big “revelation”. It’s why they decided to port games to other platforms and expand the ecosystem to cloud and PC: they don’t believe it’d harm Xbox console user base numbers, and they equally didn’t think that exclusives would net them growth anymore either. And for the most part we’re seeing that they’ve been right. Yeah Playstation is out selling Xbox but not really itself last gen. Not enough. Even Nintendo. As good as the Switch was, it wasn’t better than when Nintendo was selling over a hundred million Wii consoles AND over a hundred million DS consoles (I think the DS alone sold in the 150 million range), and exclusives didn’t save the WiiU.
Similarly the conversation surrounding the consoles hasn’t changed. It’s always been that Xbox is “de prioritized” and games have always skipped Xbox. That’s far from new. This gen though it’s increasingly happened less and less. The Xbox team went a long way to work with partners to port games over to Xbox that have never been on the platform and increasingly we’re seeing Xbox on the list of platforms for day one launches for more and more games. In terms of third and first party game support Xbox is better than ever, but the talking points surrounding Xbox haven’t really changed in 25 years.
I feel like it all speaks to what we know about the demographics of console gamers. As in most of us are at least working adults (I feel like I’m on the lower end as a recent college graduate, but still definitely not a minor which is what I’m getting at). We’re not really at places of change and by this point we’ve had our preferred platforms for well over a decade. We’ve also been saying the same things for at least a decade. I know I’ve been. “Xbox is the best place to play because it offers the most value and freedom for my library.” All that’s changed is that continues to be more true as XPA expands. We know that kids and new gamers aren’t really entering the scene (certainly not in big numbers) and even if they were, they aren’t the people driving these conversations in online forums/twitter/social media/gaming “news” sites. It’s all grown men and women (and mostly men) who have had their preferences for a long while now or are just straight up lifeless and feeding the algorithm because they’ve known how well ragebaiting works for a while now.
Xbox is definitely making a big pivot to shakeup their stake in the gaming industry, and hopefully it works. They seem adamant that following Sony and Nintendo’s strategy doesn’t work for them, and I’m inclined to agree. Arguably this is a strategy they should’ve followed from the start. I think they can easily hit ovee 30 million every 5 to 6 years with proprietary hardware even if it’s the premium hybrid box as long as it supports full backwards compatibility. However, the real battle will be with OEMs, cloud, and building a PC (and mobile if they can ever make that store happen) market. If they can flood the world with the Xbox ecosystem then they can start to reach new gamers. Cloud gaming is really improving and direct availability on as many TVs as possible (and they really need apple and Google to play ball on the app) could actually pull in casuals and non gamers. Xbox FSE being the default experience could make Xbox as synonymous as Windows for gaming. Even if most people still use steam, the Xbox store will inevitably get more traffic and Xbox experiences will be used as a sort of gaming hub. OEMs flooding the markets will improve “Xbox” availability especially in global regions that Microsoft struggles to sell consumer hardware in (just like windows PCs). OEMs will also make sure there’s an Xbox for everyone without us needing to rely on Microsoft or Microsoft needing to rely on themselves. Xbox can sell the license and work with partners but OEMs will handle hardware production, pricing, and availability themselves which will just forcibly expand what’s possible. Windows is only as big as it is because of OEMs. Otherwise it just wouldn’t be possible. As much as people love Macs, so long as only Apple makes them then MacOS will never actually overtake Window’s market share globally. It’s just not possible. People have their preferences but only Windows is the big cheese default and that’s only possible due to OEMs. The same is true for Android vs iOS. Microsoft following their own strategy for success and maximizing gaming potential using their competitive advantages has serious opportunities for success. We won’t see it for a while though. In part they’ll need some osmosis to really reach outside of their existing user base and grow. It’ll be interesting to see how people continue to interact with Xbox. Like how will people respond to “Xbox Cloud Gaming on your TV with no additional hardware required” or “Xbox XYZ brand PC” or even the Xbox FSE (which we’ve already seen great reactions from PC gamers).
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Special edition Xbox consoles! Part of me wishes they’d save the controllers for next gen, but I guess there wouldn’t be any change in tech. Anyway they are playing the anniversary strong and ending off the Series generation strong then. They can easily surpass 50 million. I do wonder if they plan to produce and keep the series consoles (at least the X) in circulation even after launching next gen because the Series X still holds up and still will hold up because I don’t expect game development to team rocket blast off anytime soon. Wait, I got it. Release the premium next Gen hybrid box, discontinue the Series S, and rename the Series X as the Xbox Series S. Boom.
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Great news/rumors all around! this will be an amazing year for Xbox software wise plus it will be awesome if new Xbox controllers and console editions are indeed coming! Hopefully the new Xbox controllers will have back buttons because I really don’t care for the haptics. 
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Lots of the games I mentioned run on a Xbox One. Porting them to Switch 2 should not be a big headache.
They should have outsourced this to Riot and not some cheap clone factory.
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Starfield is CPU intensive and the Switch 2’s CPU isn’t very good. The main issue for Xbox and Switch ports is that their games need to be on Switch 2 and Nintendo was reticent to have Switch 2 only games last year, as they have 100m+ Switch 1 users, still.
The Outer Worlds 2 is UE5, that engine runs terribly on Switch 2. ROI is always a thing, who is going to do the port and what sales do you expect, etc. On top of the previously mentioned issues with getting devkits for Switch 2 only skus
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i didnt mention Starfield. Diablo 4, Call of Duty, Sea of Thieves and Forza Horizon 5 are all on Xbox One.
Almost a third of the american video industry lost their jobs in 2025. Maybe some of these people could have ported Xbox One games to Switch 2?
You know that isn’t how any of this works, come on. They are businesses with their own employees and costs vs. expected returns. I’m sure if they can do switch ports they will, but most of their teams have not had or still do not have switch 2 devkits.
Im just saying if Xbox wants to be the biggest and best third party publisher then they should act like one. Right now Switch 2 is missing a great racing game. All these things are missed opportunities and dollars.
And Call of Duty? They promised that in court.
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Does anyone know what games shown on nintendo partner direct was shown to be on xbox and is launching on the platform?
does this help?
https://www.trueachievements.com/news/xbox-games-nintendo-direct-partner-showcase-february-2026
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Like I said, Nintendo would not give them Devkits. I’m not sure what you expect them to do in that scenario?Like I said, Nintendo would not give them dead kids. I’m not sure what you expect them to do in that scenario?
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Check your post, auto correct change it to dead kids.
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