Game companies are “baffled” by Microsoft’s multiplatform strategy, reluctant to develop games for Xbox consoles, according to a new report

VGA-Games said:
Why should Video Gamers buy an XBox Series X or XBox Series S instead of a PlayStation 5 when they can have access to all 1st Party Microsoft Games and all 1st Party PlayStation Games by purchasing a PlayStation 5.
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Healthy reminder. You will never get access to all 1st party Microsoft games on PS5.

Even if you stream through cloud you'll stumble upon games that you can't access.

Running natively you'll at best get the new games and select old games.

The reality is that many ganes are delisted, like most past Forza Motorsport and Horizon titles, and some are just too small to get ported, some have closed studios, some are made by studios too busy to go back to old titles. Etc.

So, if Xbox games is what you want then a MS platform is what you'll want. Same as with PlayStation titles and PC ports. You'll never get the complete thing elsewhere. I use my PC as a PlayStation 5 now but I can't play GT7, Astrobot, Demon's Souls. Ports could arrive, but nothing is certain and shouldn't be expected.
 
As a gamer, "a console with no exclusives" direction does not make sense to me. I'm thinking the Xbox division is now big enough to affect Microsoft stock price after that Activision deal. It was a decision made during Covid and it's clear it's not going to drive enough growth for gamepass. It maybe the "Eye of Sauron" forcing this direction.
 
ms' 'strategy':
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I mean, why would 3rd parties want to spend time and money making versions of their games for a console whose users don't buy games? Unless there's a good GP deal, what's the point?
 
Klayzer said:
Ahh, game sales on Xbox. Why do you think Microsoft is pivoting to 3rd party. I guess there's still folks in denial.
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In denial of what exactly? Fewer people have Xbox so naturally there are fewer sales. But how does it follow from there that "people are being conditioned not to buy games due to Gamepass"?
 
Klayzer said:
Ahh, game sales on Xbox. Why do you think Microsoft is pivoting to 3rd party. I guess there's still folks in denial.
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I think it's just a hope that they can have both a cheap sub and incredible game sales. It's never going to happen at these prices and with day one games.
 
Chris Dring has zero sources. This is the same Chris Dring who has sources tell him "Game Pass was dying, no one wants to be on it" and they proceeded to announce like 25 Game Pass games at the showcase. I imagine he's been talking to the Quantum Error devs.
 
violence said:
As a gamer, "a console with no exclusives" direction does not make sense to me. I'm thinking the Xbox division is now big enough to affect Microsoft stock price after that Activision deal. It was a decision made during Covid and it's clear it's not going to drive enough growth for gamepass. It maybe the "Eye of Sauron" forcing this direction.
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Microsoft has been trying to replace the console exclusive games hook with game pass as a way to draw people to their consoles. Given how that's going it makes me wonder what they'll try next.
 
I said I knew developers who were saying the samething but I was accused of getting the information from my uncle who works at Nintendo as the janitor.
 
Yeah it's weird AF but when you realize how expensive it is to make a AAA game, and that MS dumped 75BLN on acquisitions yes they're the richest corpo in the world but they aren't made of money and they don't make games as a charity. They need to make their money back and they can't do that by making games exclusively on hardware that nobody owns or wants.

They basically fucked over their fans with those ABK and Zenimax buys.
 
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Clearly the end goal is to create a platform where you can play games everywhere. I think that's a great strategy, the industry as we know it is unsustainable for MS and Sony.
 
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{insert code here} said:
Yeah it's weird AF but when you realize how expensive it is to make a AAA game, and that MS dumped 75BLN on acquisitions yes they're the richest corpo in the world but they aren't made of money and they don't make games as a charity. They need to make their money back and they can't do that by making games exclusively on hardware that nobody owns or wants.

They basically fucked over their fans with those ABK and Zenimax buys.
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The "fans" are as much to blame as them ... always dismissing criticism and cheering whatever slopp they got because it was "free" from papa Spencer. And now a legion of "I will wait to play free" gamers was created.

Be right or wrong we got a lot of known Sony fans (like me) criticizing for a long time the direction they are going... I simply never see such responses from the green side until they openly went third party...

I guess thats the true genius of gamepass... criticizing "free" stuff is much harder.
 
Bernardougf said:
The "fans" are as much to blame as them ... always dismissing criticism and cheering whatever slopp they got
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God I remember the twitter bots fucking glazing Redfall when it came out even though literally everybody who wasn't a shill could see it was a poorly made piece of shit.
 
I think ms wants out of hardware. Going forward gamepass likely to be first party games only so they can get on steam and PlayStation.
 
K' Dash said:
Clearly the end goal is to create a platform where you can play games everywhere. I think that's a great strategy, the industry as we know it is unsustainable for MS and Sony.
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It's been very sustainable for Sony for 30 years. They dominate a very large segment of the games industry. Their closest competition is now publishing games for them.

Sony only needs to realize they don't need to keep making games bigger and (much) more expensive. God of War Ragnarok was a PS4 game 2 years into the current gen, it was built on the tech from the previous game, it shouldn't have taken 4 years to develop (well it suffered delays due to Covid and an issue with the lead actor). But it sold a ton and made buckets of money and it was essentially a last gen game.

Same thing for GT7, Horizon FW. A game like Elden Ring has sold 30 million, built on tech from 2016, also a cross gen game, and sold who knows how many million more copies of the $40 expansion.

There are more success stories than failures. People buy good games, great games, like always' been the case. Make good games and they will sell and don't break the bank over-producing them, they will generate a lot of profits and there's always other ways to make extra money from add-ons, collectors editions and mtx.
 
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Shouldn't we be seeing evidence of this by now if it as extreme as Dring is putting forward?

Instead, every major game announced has the Xbox logo in it's trailer, meaning it's at least 7 years before we'll see the results of any "cancellations".
 
Can we stop using 'report' for things people just said?
It's like using "New journal article" for something someone scribbled in their journal.
 
The next Xbox "console" should just be a PC running Windows. Problem solved for everyone involved. They fucking own the OS. Just put it on the console already.
 
adamsapple said:
Should be edited into the OP.

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Funny how he doesn't at all address the issue of GamePass leading to stagnant software sales on MS consoles.

Sure, MS third party relations will be good now, but GamePass cratering software sales will only make those GamePass deals more and more expensive for MS. So, at some point, it won't make sense for MS to finance the deals.
 
That's fine because the rumors indicate that the next Xbox will basically be a oc that dual boots steam. They will just develop a Steam version and a windows store version or something along those lines. There may not be any "extra" development beyond just rating the oc version to the windows store. The Xbox store might just be the same thing as the windows store next time.

I'm gonna be honest. I'm pretty hopeful about the next Xbox. I used to run my oc by my tv, but just foundxx cc a tower too clunky for the living room. A under the tv sized Xbox that dual boots steam sounds great to me.
 
It makes no sense unless they are fully going 3rd party. Ironically the activision acquisition killed them.
 
Devs were already annoyed by all the Series S requirements making their lives more difficult. What incentive do they have to develop for Xbox? Lots of effort, high cost, low reward.
 
Lunatic_Gamer said:
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During the latest episode of The Game Business Show on YouTube, editor-in-chief and co-founder Christopher Dring mentioned that certain publishers and developers he has spoken to are "baffled" by the multiplatform strategy of Xbox. From their point of view, it limits competition within the console space. They are now questioning why they should even bother developing games for Xbox consoles if this is Microsoft's strategy going forward. According to Dring, that's a balance that Microsoft's going to have to strike.

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twistedvoxel.com

Game Companies Are Reportedly "Baffled" By Microsoft's Multiplatform Strategy, Reluctant To Develop For Xbox Consoles

Game companies are reportedly "baffled" by Microsoft's multiplatform strategy, and they are reluctant to develop games for Xbox consoles.
twistedvoxel.com twistedvoxel.com


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"He looked at how many games he would have bought if he wasn't a Game Pass subscriber, and he realized that Xbox may have made more money off him as a subscriber than they would have if he had bought the games individually. As such, he believes the subscription service is becoming quite appealing."

Is he speaking as an MS shareholder or what? Wtf?!?

Beautiful the "MS increased game prices is now: games, somehow, on their own reached $80 please buy GamePass that totally will not raise in price". Dring is doing an ad here :D.
 
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Dring doing the walk-back shouldn't be surprising imo.

What was surprising to me is this is the 2nd time he makes this claim (and last time he walked it back too). Makes me think he's being told to tone it down.

ZehDon said:
Shouldn't we be seeing evidence of this by now if it as extreme as Dring is putting forward?

Instead, every major game announced has the Xbox logo in it's trailer, meaning it's at least 7 years before we'll see the results of any "cancellations".
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Most publishing decisions for new games are made years in advance as part of the project scoping. No one anticipated that this gen would go so badly for Microsoft, least of which Microsoft itself.

This is the sort of thing you'd see the impact of by the end of this gen at a minimum. Keep in mind that the MS pivot to 3P has been very ad hoc and un-communicated in advance to their 3P partners.
 
Astray said:
Dring doing the walk-back shouldn't be surprising imo.

What was surprising to me is this is the 2nd time he makes this claim (and last time he walked it back too). Makes me think he's being told to tone it down.


Most publishing decisions for new games are made years in advance as part of the project scoping. No one anticipated that this gen would go so badly for Microsoft, least of which Microsoft itself.

This is the sort of thing you'd see the impact of by the end of this gen at a minimum. Keep in mind that the MS pivot to 3P has been very ad hoc and un-communicated in advance to their 3P partners.
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I don't like Dring, but you're exactly right, he first said this in 2024. Imagine knowing how long games take to make and thinking that the impact of this would be felt by now...

Let's say at best developers started feeling like this in 2023 a year before they talked to Dring. If the "average" game takes 5 years to develop, you wouldn't see any evidence (if an average game takes 5 years, you'll see games on either end of it) of this until at the earliest 2027...

But yeah, back to Dring, he's obviously trying to make headlines without burning bridges. The format he's selected has been just awful I feel.

I think people like ZehDon expect that if this were true, you'd see more and more games cancelled for XBS, but that's not really all that realistic. Once its been greenlit, you already have sunk costs, it's not really worth canceling the game.

These are obviously hard times for Xbox, but I hope that through this experience gaming in general can get back to more objective realities in the next few years.
 
Developing a PS5 game is exactly the fucking same. x86 AMD SoC with slight degrees of varying power. It's silly not to put their games on an Xbox console.

Also, those said companies wouldn't be allowed on windows, so good luck to you.
 
Xbox now seems more interested in selling the PS5 than its own console, where hardly any software is sold. It's understandable that developers are already hesitating to continue supporting the system. If Microsoft doesn't do it, why would they?
 
Mibu no ookami said:
I don't like Dring, but you're exactly right, he first said this in 2024. Imagine knowing how long games take to make and thinking that the impact of this would be felt by now...

Let's say at best developers started feeling like this in 2023 a year before they talked to Dring. If the "average" game takes 5 years to develop, you wouldn't see any evidence (if an average game takes 5 years, you'll see games on either end of it) of this until at the earliest 2027...

But yeah, back to Dring, he's obviously trying to make headlines without burning bridges. The format he's selected has been just awful I feel.

I think people like ZehDon expect that if this were true, you'd see more and more games cancelled for XBS, but that's not really all that realistic. Once its been greenlit, you already have sunk costs, it's not really worth canceling the game.

These are obviously hard times for Xbox, but I hope that through this experience gaming in general can get back to more objective realities in the next few years.
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I'd say another factor is that there are lots of people who work on games but don't have an input on platform strategy. So the people Dring is talking to might not be the people who decide if a game comes to Xbox or not.

Out of curiosity, why do you think the format he has chosen is awful?
 
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