Xbox Series S | X Console Discussion

[Josh64]

I rarely succumb to rumours these days, but given they've been playing ball with Nintendo recently with Banjo, and the heavily rumoured Nintendo Direct was due today, I did think maybe there would be some form of Rare announcement. 

 

I think Sheikah may be onto something, in that maybe they did intend to make a bigger splash, but have scaled back the announcements amid the backlash. If that's not the case then they really are pretty inept to make such a fuss over what essentially should be a tweet announcing that 4 titles are coming to other platforms. 

[Hero-of-Time]

 

2 minutes ago, Sheikah said:

The only thing that would make sense is if, following their backlash, they've chosen to hold off announcing any other games might/will come to other platforms. Start with just 4 and then trickle announce others further down the line.

This seems to be the plan. Despite them saying on the Podcast that their exclusivity strategy hasn't changed, an interview has been published with the following from Spencer.

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You mentioned that Starfield and Indiana Jones aren't part of the four despite rumors, but will those ever come to PS5? Can you rule that out?

I don't think we should as an industry ever rule out a game going to any other platform. We're focused on these four games and learning from the experience.

But I don't want to create a false expectation on those other platforms that this is somehow the first four to get over the dam and then the dam's going to open and that everything else is coming, that's not the plan today. I also don't want to mislead customers on those other platforms. We're launching these four games, and we're excited about it. We're excited about the announce and everything else, but we'll see what happens for our business.

There's also this...

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I understand that Microsoft has also previously been weighing up the idea of bringing Gears of War, Microsoft Flight Simulator, and even the next Doom game to rival platforms. Final decisions haven't been made on these other games, but there's bound to be more than just four. As this strategy evolves, it's clear there will be some interesting decisions being made about the future of Xbox games and exclusivity.

At this point they may as well go 3rd party and stop with the mixed messaging. They are clearly gearing up for bigger titles to cross over. Whole thing reminds me of the Tomb Raider incident and how the messaging was all over the place for that. In fact, messaging and has been a massive issue for Microsoft/Xbox for a couple of generations now.

[Julius]

I agree with @Hero-of-Time that this being sat on for nearly two weeks for a near-complete nothingburger is dreadful. Could and should have nipped this in the bud immediately. And good lord do they not stop with the marketing buzzwords! 

Do also agree with @Sheikah that maybe things got scaled back as a result of the backlash - if nothing else I think it gave Phil something to go with to Satya and say "see, I told you. Bad idea." It's the only possible explanation why it took nearly two weeks for a low production and low effort 20+ minute sit-down to come together. 

Anyways, I took notes while watching, might as well share them:

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• Phil explains show originally planned in December, start with ABK, hardware, but unforeseen leaks means they want to tackle exclusivity first. 
• four games coming to other consoles - decision being made with "long-term health of Xbox in mind: growing platform, games performing". 
• four titles asked to be named - denied. Have announcement plans which aren't too far away. 
• Starfield or Indy? Nope, says Phil. 
• asked about criteria to decide these, but Phil explains fundamental is long-term health of growing the Xbox platform and giving their games as much success as possible. Believes in 5-10 years exclusive titles will be a smaller factor - no great insight here, has been a growing trend for years. Coming back to the question, looked at games over a year old, some of which are community-driven and reached full potential on Xbox and PC but which they still want to support and invest in. Hoping this move gives them confidence moving forwards - so two of these fill this mantle. The other two are smaller games which their teams really wanted to build and after realising potential on Xbox and PC, want to get more value out of these by bringing to other platforms. Feels this doesn't damage Xbox brand. Looking forward, looking to introduce Xbox franchises on other platforms to generate more interest in value of the brand - but no promise that more than the four games are coming. 
• how does this apply to future titles? Doesn't change exclusivity stance, says Phil. Feels cloud and the platforms they are available on and growing strategy on new, more accessible platforms, trying to reach more players in more ways. Emphasises Xbox being a hardware platform and a publisher. 
• Booty: used to be platform was the biggest, games would tuck in within this; now, things like Roblox are bigger than any one platform. Revisiting first-party, all their games will continue to come to Xbox first, Game Pass on Day 1, Game Pass will ONLY be available on Xbox. Want to bring more of their games to more players, so will continue to look at that. 
• still Booty: cross-play and cross-save, want to continue supporting this across platforms. Not all their games today built to take advantage of this, some catching up to do with newly acquired teams. 
• Bond: all games always on Game Pass. ABK games coming to Game Pass starting with Diablo IV on 28th March. Part of commitment to make experience and games they build as widely available as possible to their 34 million Game Pass users. 
• Phil asked to recap how this isn't a change in strategy, explains something like Play Anywhere where they're the only ones doing this and knowing consumers have access to content how they want it, wants to see this on more platforms. 
• had different taglines and strategies through the years but ultimately with investments in xCloud, Minecraft, CoD, etc., want to bring games to as many as possible. Games not in service of device, but deviceS in service of the games being accessible to more. Will help to continue to grow and generate the brand. 
• seeing trends with people playing on multiple platforms, which they've already been doing - good for players, but how about for business? With addition of ABK and Zenimax, Phil says they're one of the largest publishers now on mobile, Switch and PlayStation - which they don't want to back away from. Highlights need of growth in business to continue supporting this - wants healthy player, dev communities and business to continue to grow from this. 
• how does Xbox want to keep up with the industry? Phil says 2023 was an amazing year for games but the industry didn't really grow - and when this happens, we see jobs get lost. Lack of sustainability. A healthy industry should be players getting games they love, and devs feeling they can invest in their careers. If you listen to AMD CEO Lisa Sue, AMD-powered consoles likely to decline in 2024. If they don't grow the industry, it will struggle. Options are to monetise things more or expand and find new players; focus on Xbox last decade is the latter, an emphasis on growth. Feels this will put Xbox in a great position for years and decades to come. 
• Booty: gaming communities? CoD and Minecraft driven by their communities. For the player community, feel they're looking for where their friends are and where your library of games is. On the dev side, obviously want the biggest audience. Feels they're in a unique position with hardware, first-party games group, cross-platform systems to help make the games bigger. 
• Bond highlights Palworld. Biggest third-party Game Pass launch ever. They know it's working, performance of platform: highest level of users on console, PC, cloud, ever. Double digit growth on PC and cloud, allowing devs to reach more. 
• hardware? Bond: it's where you get seminal Xbox experience and doubles as a developer target. More people than ever before making games for Xbox [my note: *acquisitions*]. Looking ahead at next-gen hardware, looking to make the largest technical leap. 
• libraries and preservation? Phil: highlight for him was announcing their Xbox backwards compatibility initiative last gen. Looking at Windows, over the decades it has maintained software compatibility through the years on new platforms. Harder on console as the line is tighter, end up with generational compatibilities. Looking at future hardware generations, making sure they respect the investments already made is fundamental. Ability to play games on multiple devices with entitlements on both Xbox and Windows when purchasing a game. 
• what does Xbox stand for today? Bond: when you play on Xbox, you're playing on a platform where you know the biggest games are always going to be [my note: I audibly snickered]. Get to access Game Pass, all games from all their studios on Game Pass on Day 1, cross-play, cross-save, cross-progression, Play Anywhere [buzzwords, more buzzwords]. When investing in Xbox, you know you're investing in making gaming more successful. 
• Booty: reiterates that they're one of the biggest developers and publishers, more than 10 major releases coming this year, some still to be announced. June Showcase coming up. 

@Hero-of-Time to me that interview suggests they're going to do what they probably should have to begin with and trickle things out for the rest of this gen before taking the plunge at the start of the next. This discussion should never have been on the cards mid-gen, and whoever decided it was needs their ego to be checked. 

Edited February 15 by Julius

[darksnowman]

Imo, should have said we don't comment on rumours and positioned themselves above it all from the getgo and let the insatiable rumourmill eat itself alive. Then again, the only thing worse than people talking about you is people not talking about you. 

T'Internet'd still be raging if Xbox put on an E3-style presser to announce they're shutting up shop with immediate effect so there's no winning in this business.

Well, that's been Palworld and this Xbox debacle. The Nintendo Direct "insiders" gonna ramp it up for the second half of Feb or can we look forward to something new next week?

[Dcubed]

That was about as clear as mud.  Only the four titles? Yeah fucking right, it's only been about an hour and you're already hinting at more to come...

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You mentioned that Starfield and Indiana Jones aren't part of the four despite rumors, but will those ever come to PS5? Can you rule that out?
I don't think we should as an industry ever rule out a game going to any other platform. We're focused on these four games and learning from the experience.
But I don't want to create a false expectation on those other platforms that this is somehow the first four to get over the dam and then the dam's going to open and that everything else is coming, that's not the plan today. I also don't want to mislead customers on those other platforms. We're launching these four games, and we're excited about it. We're excited about the announce and everything else, but we'll see what happens for our business.

I will just go ahead and assume that everything is coming to Nintendo and Sony platforms eventually, nothing is off the table anymore.

Xbox owners really needed straight-forward communication here.  Instead they're just letting speculation and FUD continue spreading unabated.  A disaster of communication.  They're even hinting at new hardware, so they clearly have some plans that they could've communicated here, but instead they continue to mince their words.  Cowardly behaviour.

Edited February 15 by Dcubed

[Julius]

Turns out that 34 million figure for Game Pass includes Core members, too. 

Cheeky bastards. 

Based on what we've heard previously (I think Core was ~11 to 12 million at that point), at best, Game Pass Ultimate subscriptions have barely increased, and at worst, they've actually gone down. So that's a big yikes. 

17 hours ago, darksnowman said:

Imo, should have said we don't comment on rumours and positioned themselves above it all from the getgo and let the insatiable rumourmill eat itself alive. Then again, the only thing worse than people talking about you is people not talking about you. 

Hard disagree. 

Xbox saying nothing while their incredibly vocal minority of diehard fans go scorched earth and start trading in their consoles and posting about it online would have been a terrible look considering that they've decided to get buddy-buddy with what is now a fairly toxic diehard community; both PlayStation and Nintendo staff have backed off significantly over the last decade or so in terms of fan interactions and encouraging the idea that the relationship between them and us is anything other than transactional. 

Xbox are also absolutely abysmal at communication, and they have a history of being absolutely abysmal at communication.  Anything other than an attempt at clarifying this mess, especially when it seems to be stuff perpetuated outwards from within their own walls, wouldn't have helped their situation at all. I've said it before, but the fact that it's like they were seriously about to go ahead with a mid-gen "our games are no longer exclusive and are coming elsewhere!" is absolutely stupid. It's exactly why I believe that's why it would have happened if not for the purported leaks and subsequent blowback. 

As a company in a primarily creativity-driven industry, there is something worse than people not talking about you, and that's your most loyal and diehard fans (customers) turning against you. Poor word of mouth is absolutely damning in this day and age. 

17 hours ago, darksnowman said:

T'Internet'd still be raging if Xbox put on an E3-style presser to announce they're shutting up shop with immediate effect so there's no winning in this business.

There is winning in this business, and right now, it comes about when you make a solid piece of hardware (which Xbox does have) and consistently release quality exclusive titles (first-party developed or through third-party deals) for said piece of hardware which are strong enough to sell the brand. 

While I do agree with Phil that exclusive titles are going to be less of a differentiator in 5-10 years, I feel like there's zero point looking that far ahead when you are losing NOW; Xbox are in a bad position NOW. Game Pass growth is stagnating and has been for a good while, and these Series X and PS5 are virtually at parity when it comes to performance, and so the biggest differentiators right now is the existing buy-in when it comes to digital libraries (which Phil admits they lost out on last generation) and exclusive titles. They are important now, and I think it creates this important cycle - while hardware sales are still important and not everything is coming to PC on Day 1 on PlayStation - later in the gen where you'll be able to pick up a PS5 at a bargain price with excellent AAA titles bundled in from many years before. It was similar at the launch of the PS5 with the PlayStation Plus Collection - a collection of some of the best first- and third-party games released last gen, as a great way to whet the appetites of people new to the platform. 

If Xbox were pulling out of the business I think it would be silly to expect an E3-style presser, but a brief 5-10 minute monologue with Phil CLEARLY explaining what's going on and what the game plan is would've been much better than what we got yesterday. 

For me, seeing how terribly Xbox handles these things just really highlights and strengthens for me the concept of a Nintendo Direct - and this idea that Nintendo want to communicate to YOU, the player; you know, a persuasion technique you learn in English classes in primary school?! - and shows how ahead of the curb Nintendo are on some things. 

This should have been Phil against a white background giving a sense of direction communication to fans. To file in Bond and Booty and disseminate this info - and not even complete info, because we got way more detail afterwards which muddied the waters again! - via a podcast where you sit on a couch and don't look at the camera and through to the people watching says so much.

It's part of why Xbox feels so corporate and are so bad at these things, they scream "We're with you! We're gamers! We're for the players!" and then give the most sterile, least passionate, and most incredibly murky clarification possible, in a set attempting to be chill and relaxing when your fans right now are anything but? Look at the camera. Say you're angry about the leaks. Apologise for the delay in correcting these details, and be honest if plans have changed as a result. The best way to be for your consumers is to act it, not say it. 

They 100% should've looked back at what Nintendo did with the Prime 4 delay:

Anyways, rant over.

Xbox aren't going to learn, and I'm sure there will be consequences for that further down the line. I want to get to a point where I can't say "no" to their consoles and Game Pass - I've said so all generation - and yet I don't think they could continue to make their platform less appealing for me if they tried. Hearing corporate go "we are where all the big games are!" when you've had the weakest lineup of exclusive titles this generation just sums it all up for me. They don't care. There's no hunger in their eyes. 

As @Dcubed rightly said, I think they're cowards and beyond stupid with how they've handled this. 

[Hero-of-Time]

Chris Dring talking about what he seen at GDC.

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With Xbox, I've heard from a very prominent company and one not so prominent that Xbox's performance in Europe is flatlining. You can follow our monthly coverage in the games market and you can see Xbox's sales are falling and it's fell all throughout last year and it's falling even harder this year.

The major company who released a big game last year said they don't know why they bother supporting it. We've mentioned in a previous podcast that retailers are considering or have began cutting back Xbox stock on their shelves, hardware & games... and now you've got third-party publishers going: "We're putting a lot of effort into creating an Xbox Series S/X version of a game where to be honest with you the market for us is PC and PS5"

And with Xbox putting some of the games on PS5, I understand the majority of them will be coming across at some point, assuming, you know, it progresses as Xbox believes it probably will. I think Xbox is in real trouble as a hardware manufacturer. And that was the thing that came out of GDC for me, because I always just thought, I've always been of the belief that it is the Game Pass delivery system, it's got a good UI, it's got a good controller, if you like Xbox games it's probably the best way to play them, etc. I thought it would be fine but then I didn't really factor in that some developers and publishers might just go, yeah I don't, you know, is there any point? And that is when you can lose it.

I was watching Michael Pachter's podcast and he was talking about how it's all about GamePass for Xbox, yet I've actually been hearing that Microsoft's been putting less focus on GamePass.

If true, it shows once again that GamePass just hasn't done what they intended it to do. It hasn't drove console sales and also stop software sales.

From the sounds of it, Microsoft look to be pivoting to be a standard 3rd party publisher. If they can see a good return on other consoles by selling their games at a standard price then that may be the final nail in the coffin.