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[Topher]

Thread title modified for length restrictions. Actual long ass title:

Until Xbox can get AAA studios and exciting indies to organically support 'Xbox Play Anywhere,' Microsoft's current gaming strategy will not pay off​

---

Without exclusive games, Xbox customers deserve investment in exclusive features. Microsoft needs to display a bit more urgency.

Recently, I wrote an article about how it isn't exclusive games keeping me on Xbox Series X|S, but instead, the exclusive features the Xbox ecosystem has.

Over the holiday period, I found myself extensively immersed in Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Collection, which really represents the "This is an Xbox" vision better than most titles right now. Notably, Microsoft seems to have wound down its encompassing ecosystem ad campaign, with it vanishing from view entirely in recent weeks. You'd be forgiven for not knowing what I'm even talking about, given how quickly the campaign appeared and then disappeared, which in my opinion, shows a lack of conviction from Microsoft about some of their ecosystem pledges here.

Indeed, I wrote that the "This is an Xbox" campaign was premature. The marketing aimed to highlight that you can access Xbox games and services on any device, but I argued that suggesting someone can enjoy a full "Xbox experience" on their smartphone is borderline insulting. A vanishingly few portion of games on the Xbox store across PC and Xbox One, Series X|S support buy-once, play-anywhere features with cross-save, and fewer still support cloud.

With Xbox taking the focus off hardware more than ever, many pundits wonder if the gaming division is poised to go the way of Sega in years past. Is Xbox devolving into a video game publisher with no store ecosystem of its own, relying on other companies to distribute their games? I don't think things are quite that dire yet, but unless Microsoft does something to turbo charge the "unique" aspects of its ecosystem soon, I can't see the third-place player having much to offer the gaming landscape in the mid to long term.

What do Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Monster Hunter Wilds, and Civilization 7 have in common?​

What do they all have in common? A complete lack of support for Xbox Play Anywhere.

With Microsoft effectively giving up on selling the Xbox Series X|S, the firm seems intent on growing its revenue streams beyond its lagging hardware business by expanding to PlayStation 5 and soon, the Nintendo Switch 2. Only this past week, Microsoft revealed that Forza Horizon 5 is heading to PlayStation 5, with Age of Empires in tow as well. We've heard that Halo and Gears of War are on the way too, as Microsoft ditches exclusive games as a vehicle for selling Xbox Series X|S hardware.

Xbox console hardware sales have been on a steady decline year-over-year for several quarters at this point, leaving Xbox fans increasingly concerned for what it could mean for the long term health of the ecosystem. With fewer players, surely that means fewer reasons for developers to support the platform, leading to a downward spiral of exiting developers and exiting players.

A couple of anchors Xbox has in its arsenal to keep themselves in the game comprises the most interesting and exciting aspects of its current ecosystem. As I mentioned, over the holiday period, I was able to take my Xbox saves for Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Collection from my Xbox Series X console on TV, to my Lenovo Legion Go PC handheld when I didn't have Wi-Fi, and to my phone on Xbox cloud with touch controls when I did have good internet. This is well and truly "the vision" of a grand Xbox future which aligns with how I think people increasingly want to play: your content, anywhere, everywhere, all at once. Youngsters who have grown up playing Fortnite, Minecraft, and Roblox simply expect games to be tied to their accounts, rather than any specific piece of hardware, with the ability to roam to any compatible device.

The problem is, Xbox's vision for this functionality is pretty much exactly that: a vision.

There are thousands of games on Xbox consoles, but only a portion of them actually support Xbox Play Anywhere, and the vast majority of the games that do support the functionality aren't exactly what you'd call spectacular games.

Microsoft's filter for "Xbox Play Anywhere" on the PC app isn't always completely consistent when it comes to listing the features either. The best way to discover Xbox Play Anywhere games is, perhaps hilariously, via this fan-made spreadsheet. Some games have cross-buy and cross-save, but some only have cross-save and not cross-buy. Most of course, have neither.

Crucially, the biggest and best games of the year organically shun Xbox Play Anywhere for whatever reason. It seems the only way games end up with Xbox Play Anywhere support is if Microsoft cuts a deal directly with the publisher, or ties it into Xbox Game Pass. Capcom supported the feature with "smaller" games like Kunitsu-Gami, Monster Hunter Rise, and ExoPrimal, but avoided it for their heavy hitters like Resident Evil 8 and Monster Hunter Wilds. Civilization 6 is on the Xbox Store for PC, but not Civ 7.

As far as I can tell, there seems to be very, very few "AAA" games that supported Xbox Play Anywhere on an organic basis, with the vast majority having some kind of marketing deal with Microsoft. Even high-quality indie games don't seem to see the value of Xbox Play Anywhere, for the most part. Metaphor: ReFantazio, Death Stranding, Ninja Gaiden 2, and Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Collection recently felt a bit like a breakthrough had been made here. But why didn't Capcom come back for Monster Hunter Wilds after Rise? Why didn't Take Two come back with Civilization 7? These are questions that deserve answering, if I am to put my purchase decisions into the "Xbox everywhere" ecosystem.

If game publishers aren't seeing the value of Xbox Play Anywhere, I'm not sure how Microsoft's long-term strategy for Xbox can play out in a positive way. Valve's Steam platform has "play anywhere" basically built into its licensing agreement by default, with Steam-based consoles and handhelds on the horizon as a major existential threat to Xbox's efforts here. Xbox has already capitulated to PlayStation, and the cadence of games hitting Xbox Play Anywhere doesn't exactly inspire confidence in its ability to compete with Steam on PC either. Xbox risks becoming a jack of all trades, but master of none, if it doesn't up the ante.

Without exclusive games, exclusive "features" need to be as strong as possible​

All of these devices are Xbox, but only one of them has thousands of high quality AAA games. The others have a few dozen at best. (Image credit: Windows Central | Jez Corden)
Microsoft has effectively given up on this generation of Xbox console hardware. In a recent interview, Xbox lead Phil Spencer said he wanted Xbox hardware to compete on its unique features in the future, lamenting how "similar" Xbox and PlayStation had become on paper. The problem is, that's years into the future — and customers are active in the ecosystem today, wondering what the point of Xbox is right now.

Xbox Game Pass is great, and the fact all Xbox first-party titles come with Xbox Play Anywhere as standard is also a great expectation to set. Microsoft has also been a frontrunner for building backwards compatibility into its consoles, while also delivering value, with its painfully underrated and delightfully affordable Xbox Series S. But it has an endured years of identity-battering misfires from weak games, fluctuating strategies, and contradictory statements leaving core fans wondering just how serious Microsoft is for the long term health of its own ecosystem.

Xbox owns Call of Duty, Candy Crush, World of Warcraft, and Minecraft. It's certainly not going anywhere. There are still tens of millions of Xbox players on console spending money, and there are more ways than ever to access Microsoft's slate of games. Microsoft's first-party studios are firing on all cylinders too, with Avowed on the horizon, and conversations I've had with players in the review program make it sound very good indeed. Xbox might have its best year for upcoming Xbox games ever. But, since they're all most likely going to PlayStation and certainly PC, they're all unlikely to do anything for Xbox's home-grown ecosystem woes.

Microsoft needs to do more to entice developers to actually utilize the unique features that give Xbox its differentiation. Microsoft needs to work harder, faster, to improve and build upon Xbox Cloud Gaming, cross-platform saves, and crucially visibility of those features. There's no social media account announcing the latest Xbox Play Anywhere games, like there is for Xbox Game Pass. The drops for Xbox Cloud Gaming "bring your own game" feature have been painfully slow so far compared to NVIDIA GeForce Now. Despite the Microsoft Store on PC offering game developers a more favorable sales cut than Steam and even Xbox itself, indie developers don't see the point in porting their games across without a PC Game Pass deal. That's a huge problem for the health of the store, in my view. Microsoft should be doing more to make it as painless as possible for developers of all shapes and sizes to deliver games on PC and Xbox both, if it wants to land the variety Steam enjoys. It should be doing more to bake in community tools on PC for developers to engage with their customers. The fact Towerborne, an Xbox published game, opted to run early access on Steam over Xbox should be a ringing indictment of how poor Xbox's platform is for developers today.

The lack of organic support for Xbox's differentiators is either because Microsoft hasn't done enough to evangelize them to developers and customers — or, what if, perhaps more worryingly — those differentiators are actually not compelling enough beyond a niche within a niche. All I know is, (unscientifically) I'm at least 672 times more likely to buy a game if it supports Xbox Play Anywhere.

It's still relatively early days since Microsoft shifted strategy here, and maybe I'm being impatient. But, to hang the entire Xbox ecosystem's future on these specific differentiators seems unlikely to prevent Microsoft's slide towards being a mere "publisher" today — unless something changes soon.

Until Xbox can get AAA studios and exciting indies to organically support 'Xbox Play Anywhere,' Microsoft's current gaming strategy will not pay off

Without exclusive games, Xbox customers deserve investment in exclusive features. Microsoft needs to display a bit more urgency.

www.windowscentral.com

---

Sometimes I feel like the Jez on twitter posting nonsense and the Jez writing the articles are two different people. Jez the writer often makes some good points.

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

Steam is about to steamroll MS imo. Already got a handheld with a store people like, rumors of a console competitor.

MS is about 5 years too late and counting for this strategy. Imo

 

[StereoVsn]

Why in the world would these companies decide to lose out money by going with Play Anywhere functionality???

MS would have to pay some serious $$$$ for that to happen.

 

[Sooner]

That's pure hopium

 

[clarky]

Jez Corden? Might as well listen to James Corden for video game opinions and predictions.

Both are fat cunts who speak nonsense.

 

[LordCBH]

What is the benefit to third parties supporting play anywhere without a cash infusion from MS? A game like monster hunter or KC2 will sell either way. Not supporting it means people might double dip.

 

[mayham2199]

Thread title modified for length restrictions. Actual long ass title:

Until Xbox can get AAA studios and exciting indies to organically support 'Xbox Play Anywhere,' Microsoft's current gaming strategy will not pay off​

---

Without exclusive games, Xbox customers deserve investment in exclusive features. Microsoft needs to display a bit more urgency.

Recently, I wrote an article about how it isn't exclusive games keeping me on Xbox Series X|S, but instead, the exclusive features the Xbox ecosystem has.

Over the holiday period, I found myself extensively immersed in Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Collection, which really represents the "This is an Xbox" vision better than most titles right now. Notably, Microsoft seems to have wound down its encompassing ecosystem ad campaign, with it vanishing from view entirely in recent weeks. You'd be forgiven for not knowing what I'm even talking about, given how quickly the campaign appeared and then disappeared, which in my opinion, shows a lack of conviction from Microsoft about some of their ecosystem pledges here.

Indeed, I wrote that the "This is an Xbox" campaign was premature. The marketing aimed to highlight that you can access Xbox games and services on any device, but I argued that suggesting someone can enjoy a full "Xbox experience" on their smartphone is borderline insulting. A vanishingly few portion of games on the Xbox store across PC and Xbox One, Series X|S support buy-once, play-anywhere features with cross-save, and fewer still support cloud.

With Xbox taking the focus off hardware more than ever, many pundits wonder if the gaming division is poised to go the way of Sega in years past. Is Xbox devolving into a video game publisher with no store ecosystem of its own, relying on other companies to distribute their games? I don't think things are quite that dire yet, but unless Microsoft does something to turbo charge the "unique" aspects of its ecosystem soon, I can't see the third-place player having much to offer the gaming landscape in the mid to long term.

What do Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Monster Hunter Wilds, and Civilization 7 have in common?​

What do they all have in common? A complete lack of support for Xbox Play Anywhere.

Without exclusive games, exclusive "features" need to be as strong as possible​

Until Xbox can get AAA studios and exciting indies to organically support 'Xbox Play Anywhere,' Microsoft's current gaming strategy will not pay off

Without exclusive games, Xbox customers deserve investment in exclusive features. Microsoft needs to display a bit more urgency.

www.windowscentral.com

---

Sometimes I feel like the Jez on twitter posting nonsense and the Jez writing the articles are two different people. Jez the writer often makes some good points.

I listen to his podcast and him and Rand do complain about stuff like this. Same with how horrible the PC store is.

 

[Zacfoldor]

This is Jez's passive aggressive way of saying that the current strategy won't work and the only way to fix it is to bring back exclusives.

I've been saying that about Sony and PS5 as well, so I agree with him. However, I will have better luck with Sony than he will have with Xbox. That said, the man understands the market. Some of you may be confused, but I'm not. Without exclusives, your bespoke hardware will die, sooner rather than later.

 

[StereoVsn]

This is Jez's passive aggressive way of saying that the current strategy won't work and the only way to fix it is to bring back exclusives.

I've been saying that about Sony and PS5 as well, so I agree with him. However, I will have better luck with Sony than he will have with Xbox. That said, the man understands the market. Some of you may be confused, but I'm not. Without exclusives, your bespoke hardware will die, sooner rather than later.

This is true, but Papa Satya already put his foot down and exclusives are dead. Phil had 10+ years and tens of billions of $$$ to right that ship and failed.

 

[adamsapple]

Play Anywhere is fantastic when a game supports it, but I don't think all publishers will be eager to get onboard.

 

[kevboard]

eventually they need to force Play Anywhere.

99% of devs will already have a PC version anyway, so it shouldn't be too much to ask for.
and for older games where it's hard to add play anywhere functionality, they'll need to work on an emulator/translation layer so that you can play Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One games on Windows.

that's the only way their strategy to fuse Xbox and Windows will work out

 

[Topher]

Why in the world would these companies decide to lose out money by going with Play Anywhere functionality???

MS would have to pay some serious $$$$ for that to happen.

That's the thing. This is a bit of a catch 22 for Microsoft. For them to be the platform/service/whatever that is "everywhere" they have to be able to bring all the games with them. But publishers are not just going to go along with this simply because it is Microsoft and Microsoft isn't going to pay for every game to be Play Anywhere. It will remain a piece meal service that really only caters to Microsoft's only publishing. So when Microsoft says "this is an Xbox"......no, it really isn't.

eventually they need to force Play Anywhere.

99% of devs will already have a PC version anyway, so it shouldn't be too much to ask for.

How is Microsoft going to "force Play Anywhere"?

 

[viveks86]

---

Sometimes I feel like the Jez on twitter posting nonsense and the Jez writing the articles are two different people. Jez the writer often makes some good points.

May be his brains are on his fingertips. Only uses 2 while tweeting

 

[Kacho]

Xbox Play Aneywhere is a dead end strategy just like Game Passs. There’s no reason for publishers to support these unless Microsoft is cutting them fat checks. Obviously it’s not financially viable for Microsoft do that with everyone so pickings will be slim.

 

[kevboard]

How is Microsoft going to "force Play Anywhere"?

unify the Microsoft Store on both console and PC.
PC and Xbox versions being handled as the same SKU.

eventually they will have to go down that route, if the rumors are true that the next Xbox will be Steam Deck like, as in a PC with a dedicated Xbox UI that works on a TV.

and they will need to have a solution in place to bring your older library with you onto that system as well.
this means a Windows translation layer for Xbox One titles, and an emulator for 360 and og Xbox games that runs on Windows.

 

[Topher]

unify the Microsoft Store on both console and PC.

PC and Xbox versions being handled as the same SKU.
eventually they will have to go down that route, if the rumors are true that the next Xbox will be Steam Deck like, as in a PC with a dedicated Xbox UI that works on a TV.

and they will need to have a solution in place to bring your older library with you onto that system as well.
this means a Windows translation layer for Xbox One titles, and an emulator for 360 and og Xbox games that runs on Windows.

Ah....ok. That's not really "forcing" publishers to do anything. Just make games made for Xbox consoles run on PC. There are probably licensing restrictions and such that would need to be handled, but I can definitely seeing this as an overall strategy. Definitely think MS has to bring the older BC titles forward as well.

 

[LectureMaster]

Thread title modified for length restrictions. Actual long ass title:

Until Xbox can get AAA studios and exciting indies to organically support 'Xbox Play Anywhere,' Microsoft's current gaming strategy will not pay off​

---

Without exclusive games, Xbox customers deserve investment in exclusive features. Microsoft needs to display a bit more urgency.

Recently, I wrote an article about how it isn't exclusive games keeping me on Xbox Series X|S, but instead, the exclusive features the Xbox ecosystem has.

Over the holiday period, I found myself extensively immersed in Final Fantasy Pixel Remaster Collection, which really represents the "This is an Xbox" vision better than most titles right now. Notably, Microsoft seems to have wound down its encompassing ecosystem ad campaign, with it vanishing from view entirely in recent weeks. You'd be forgiven for not knowing what I'm even talking about, given how quickly the campaign appeared and then disappeared, which in my opinion, shows a lack of conviction from Microsoft about some of their ecosystem pledges here.

Indeed, I wrote that the "This is an Xbox" campaign was premature. The marketing aimed to highlight that you can access Xbox games and services on any device, but I argued that suggesting someone can enjoy a full "Xbox experience" on their smartphone is borderline insulting. A vanishingly few portion of games on the Xbox store across PC and Xbox One, Series X|S support buy-once, play-anywhere features with cross-save, and fewer still support cloud.

With Xbox taking the focus off hardware more than ever, many pundits wonder if the gaming division is poised to go the way of Sega in years past. Is Xbox devolving into a video game publisher with no store ecosystem of its own, relying on other companies to distribute their games? I don't think things are quite that dire yet, but unless Microsoft does something to turbo charge the "unique" aspects of its ecosystem soon, I can't see the third-place player having much to offer the gaming landscape in the mid to long term.

What do Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Monster Hunter Wilds, and Civilization 7 have in common?​

What do they all have in common? A complete lack of support for Xbox Play Anywhere.

Without exclusive games, exclusive "features" need to be as strong as possible​

Until Xbox can get AAA studios and exciting indies to organically support 'Xbox Play Anywhere,' Microsoft's current gaming strategy will not pay off

Without exclusive games, Xbox customers deserve investment in exclusive features. Microsoft needs to display a bit more urgency.

www.windowscentral.com

---

Sometimes I feel like the Jez on twitter posting nonsense and the Jez writing the articles are two different people. Jez the writer often makes some good points.

Microsoft's current gaming strategy​

 

[kevboard]

Ah....ok. That's not really "forcing" publishers to do anything. Just make games made for Xbox consoles run on PC. There are probably licensing restrictions and such that would need to be handled, but I can definitely seeing this as an overall strategy. Definitely think MS has to bring the older BC titles forward as well.

for the here and now they'd still need to force it, because it's better to start unifying the libraries as early as possible imo.

so Series X/S games should start being play anywhere as a default for every game as soon as possible as a sort of transition period.

as for licensing for older titles, I wonder if that will actually be an issue if they manage to make the games run without any modification to them.
that's the whole reason the Xbox 360 back compat stuff was so complicated, because they modify the games to run as x86 programs, since the Jaguar cpu of the Xbox One wouldn't have even remotely be able to emulate the Power PC CPU of the 360.

 

[viveks86]

unify the Microsoft Store on both console and PC.
PC and Xbox versions being handled as the same SKU.

eventually they will have to go down that route, if the rumors are true that the next Xbox will be Steam Deck like, as in a PC with a dedicated Xbox UI that works on a TV.

and they will need to have a solution in place to bring your older library with you onto that system as well.
this means a Windows translation layer for Xbox One titles, and an emulator for 360 and og Xbox games that runs on Windows.

This seems like the natural next move for them. But knowing how they always make some boneheaded decision alongside every generation (like Kinect or Series S), I don't know what the next fuck up is going to be.

 

[LordCBH]

eventually they need to force Play Anywhere.

99% of devs will already have a PC version anyway, so it shouldn't be too much to ask for.
and for older games where it's hard to add play anywhere functionality, they'll need to work on an emulator/translation layer so that you can play Xbox, Xbox 360 and Xbox One games on Windows.

that's the only way their strategy to fuse Xbox and Windows will work out

How would they “force” it? If they make it a requirement to publish on Xbox, some third parties will just skip the platform.

 

[mayham2199]

for the here and now they'd still need to force it, because it's better to start unifying the libraries as early as possible imo.

so Series X/S games should start being play anywhere as a default for every game as soon as possible as a sort of transition period.

as for licensing for older titles, I wonder if that will actually be an issue if they manage to make the games run without any modification to them.
that's the whole reason the Xbox 360 back compat stuff was so complicated, because they modify the games to run as x86 programs, since the Jaguar cpu of the Xbox One wouldn't have even remotely be able to emulate the Power PC CPU of the 360.

They don't force it because they can't. This is putting 3rd party publishers in a position where they simply wont release on your system. Are you seriously going to tell Taketwo that they have to do it for GTA6? They don't even have a PC version and they sure as hell aren't going to make one just for the Xbox PC store. Hell it's well known taketwo loves double dippers there's no way Xbox forces them to do this.

 

[kevboard]

How would they “force” it? If they make it a requirement to publish on Xbox, some third parties will just skip the platform.

it shouldn't be a technical hurdle for anyone. so my question would be: why wouldn't devs do it if it was a requirement?

if japenese AA studios that release new games each year like RGG Studio can do it... then noone has really an excuse I think.

 

[tr1p1ex]

How many players care? Seems more of a novelty feature. But I'd be pretty happy just to have a great game so maybe I am too easy to please.

 

[LordCBH]

it shouldn't be a technical hurdle for anyone. so my question would be: why wouldn't devs do it if it was a requirement?

if japenese AA studios that release new games each year like RGG Studio can do it... then noone has really an excuse I think.

Whether it’s a technical hurdle or not is irrelevant. Why would they willingly eliminate the possibility people would double dip between Xbox and pc? I wouldn’t if I ran a studio.

 

[clarky]

How many players care? Seems more of a novelty feature. But I'd be pretty happy just to have a great game so maybe I am too easy to please.

Any player with more than one platform cares.

 

[Kacho]

I think Jezy boy is missing the forest for the trees here. He should be less worried about this and more worried about the Xbox platform being irrelvant to the point that third parties skip the platform entirely without financial incentive. We're already seeing that with Capcom's fighting game collection, which would have missed the platform without Microsoft stepping in to help them with their "technical issues."

 

[Topher]

for the here and now they'd still need to force it, because it's better to start unifying the libraries as early as possible imo.

so Series X/S games should start being play anywhere as a default for every game as soon as possible as a sort of transition period.

Microsoft doesn't have the leverage to force anything. Many publishers very well may opt out of an Xbox version at all if MS tries to get heavy handed with this kind of thing. Microsoft isn't going to mandate their store into relevancy.

 

[Darkkahn]

They should fire Phil and hire Jiz as the xbox boss!

 

[FalconPunch]

Play Anywhere is fantastic when a game supports it, but I don't think all publishers will be eager to get onboard.

Why would they support it when they can make you pay multiple times? The reason steam gets around this is because the platform doesn't change. It's still PC even though the formfactor is different.

 

[Magic Carpet]

There is over 800 titles that are play anywhere.
Xbox must have done something to make that happen.
Maybe the developers tried to sweeten the deal to make their own game more appealing over another game not play anywhere?

But It's all moot to me as I don't think I've ever bought a game because it was Play Anywhere.
Nowadays I just buy on PC anyway.

 

[BennyBlanco]

I think Jezy boy is missing the forest for the trees here. He should be less worried about this and more worried about the Xbox platform being irrelvant to the point that third parties skip the platform entirely without financial incentive. We're already seeing that with Capcom's fighting game collection, which would have missed the platform entirely without Microsoft stepping in to help them with their "technical issues."

He’s also still mad about the death of Windows phones and talks about it regularly like it’s something people are still thinking about in 2025.

Jez is a weird guy. I can understand being a console fanboy to a degree. I really can’t wrap my head around being an MSFT fanboy. MS bread and butter is currently and always has been boring corporate shit and not consumer facing products. It’s like being a huge fan of Xerox and buying merch.

 

[Closer]

Gaming journalism. Woooo.

 

[Sooner]

This is Jez's passive aggressive way of saying that the current strategy won't work and the only way to fix it is to bring back exclusives.

Depends on what you mean by "work". Xbox can die and Microsoft can make money as a PlayStation and Nintendo publisher and that's just fine. They don't need Xbox.

 

[adamsapple]

Why would they support it when they can make you pay multiple times? The reason steam gets around this is because the platform doesn't change. It's still PC even though the formfactor is different.

Yes, well like I said. It's fantastic for the person getting it since he or she's getting two copies of the game for the price of one.

 

[Kacho]

It’s like being a huge fan of Xerox and buying merch.

I was an Xbox fanboy but only because I was heavily invested in the ecosystem. Now, I've come to peace that my investment will likely vanish in the near future and I'll stick to other platforms. It is what it is.

I can only guess Jez clings on because it's how he makes his money, but how can you even feign caring at this point? The writing's on the fucking wall, ya know?

 

[viveks86]

I can only guess Jez clings on because it's how he makes his money, but how can you even feign caring at this point? The writing's on the fucking wall, ya know?

Sunk cost fallacy

 

[mayham2199]

Any player with more than one platform cares.

That's the problem how many people really is that? I've owned more than one platform and even I didn't give a shit about their play anywhere thing. So really it's not any player because I was one of those players and it didn't matter to me. I'll be honest the whole thing just comes across as the Kinect and TV features but not quite that out of touch. It's a nice feature but IMO it's not something most gamers will care about.

Whatever though I'm sure it's not taking much energy from Xbox to try and push it on publishers.

 

[tr1p1ex]

Any player with more than one platform cares.

its less than that. probably way less.

 

[clarky]

That's the problem how many people really is that? I've owned more than one platform and even I didn't give a shit about their play anywhere thing. So really it's not any player because I was one of those players and it didn't matter to me. I'll be honest the whole thing just comes across as the Kinect and TV features but not quite that out of touch. It's a nice feature but IMO it's not something most gamers will care about.

You didn't give a shit that you had to buy the same product more than once to be able to enjoy it on the platforms you owned?

 

[clarky]

its less than that. probably way less.

It doesn't take much but you've completely baffled me.

 

[tr1p1ex]

It doesn't take much but you've completely baffled me.

it's that hard to understand that just because someone has 2 platforms it doesn't mean they care if a game tracks across both?

Because, at least in my world, people mainly have 2 platforms to play all the games they want to play. Not so they can move back and forth between each platform to continue playing the same game where they left off.

My world sometimes needs updating tho.

 

[Fbh]

The only way I see MS getting this to work is for the next Xbox to literally just be a Windows based pre built PC (maybe with some controller friendly UI overlay) OR getting the next version of Windows to natively run Xbox Apps, sort of how iOS apps run on modern macs (though even there I think there are limitations).

As long as the Xbox and PC version of games continue to basically be 2 different products that need to be designed, optimized and supported independently, I don't see why any major third party publisher would give away the PC version of their game from free when you buy it for Xbox (or the other way around) "just because".

 

[kruis]

It's a good point. All Xbox games need to be "Xbox Anywhere" so you can play those games on any Xbox device: a console, a PC, MS' forthcoming handheld games console, streaming devices. Longtime Xbox gamers need to be able to take their entire games library to whatever future platform has envisioned.

 

[mayham2199]

You didn't give a shit that you had to buy the same product more than once to be able to enjoy it on the platforms you owned?

No I didn't give a shit because I didn't do that. I just played it on the console or PC where I purchased it. Like I said it's a nice feature but it's not something that's desperately needed.

 

[SHA]

PC launchers on Xbox? I see no reason other than they don't trust xbox.

 

[Kacho]

It's a good point. All Xbox games need to be "Xbox Anywhere" so you can play those games on any Xbox device: a console, a PC, MS' forthcoming handheld games console, streaming devices. Longtime Xbox gamers need to be able to take their entire games library to whatever future platform has envisioned.

Well, Phil seems to think the future of Xbox is "innovative services" so I wouldn't put it past them to have our Xbox libraries locked behind a subscription service that we access via the cloud.

 

[SHA]

unify the Microsoft Store on both console and PC.
PC and Xbox versions being handled as the same SKU.

eventually they will have to go down that route, if the rumors are true that the next Xbox will be Steam Deck like, as in a PC with a dedicated Xbox UI that works on a TV.

and they will need to have a solution in place to bring your older library with you onto that system as well.
this means a Windows translation layer for Xbox One titles, and an emulator for 360 and og Xbox games that runs on Windows.

Makes sense for those who don't want to switch back to buying expensive rigs. They need to officially support mouse and keyboard this time.

 

[ReBurn]

A lot of these companies aren't going to ever support Play Anywhere because it eradicates the revenue from double dippers.

 

[Topher]

Follow up article from Jez.....

This Xbox analysis chart shows how only 7% of games launched with "Play Anywhere" support in 2024 — a decline year-over-year​

This Xbox analysis chart shows how only 7% of games launched with "Play Anywhere" support in 2024 — a decline year-over-year

A recent analysis showcases Microsoft's uphill battle with one of its key differentiators against PlayStation.

www.windowscentral.com

 

[Topher]

I was an Xbox fanboy

Was?

I'm kidding bro