Xbox Business Update, via Video Podcast (ft. Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond and Matt Booty) [up:4 games for now going multi-platform and ABK joining GP]

[DongBeetle]

That's true. I don't see why parity would be an option.
It's not wishful thinking, it's just what makes sense. This decision is based on money, they don't care that more people get to enjoy Petiment. And it created all this backlash. It only makes sense that they port the games that will make them serious money. I never talked about Indiana Jones day1, but I think Gears collection, Halo and yes, Starfield, are on the table for the near future. I also believe that the loss of exclusives will lead to less hardware sales for xbox (I don't know if this means less revenue and I do think that there's logic to Xbox strategy of going subscription base publishers appearing every and anywhere)
Yet again, I won't discard Sony doing the same in the future.

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You say it's not wishful thinking but then you follow up with a paragraph filled with a bunch of "I think" lol. But you're right that multiplats are something every non NIntendo console manufacturer are going to at least consider in the next decade or so

 

[THE210]

the most fascinating thing about this whole situation is how wildly different the interpretations are. I can't imagine seeing this video and coming away believing this is only four games the internet leaks were all lies. I assumed everyone would see it as slow walking the news since it doesn't need to be revealed until it happens.
Personally I feel like MS is such a large publisher now that they have to be on all platforms for it to make since. I gave my Series X away after Christmas but they I'm now confident that I won't miss out long term. I have little time to play so I don't mind waiting.

 

[L11ghtman]

For what their long-term strategy appears to be with multiplatform releases on the table, this is probably the best announcement they could make. No way to sell the current slate of Xboxes by outright confirming the biggest games will end up elsewhere (even if they will). Moving into the next generation, they will have to make the case for Xbox being the best place to play these games instead of just waiting for them.

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Honestly I don't see anything except maybe CoD hurting PlayStation 6, and that would be a few years into the generation anyway.

the most fascinating thing about this whole situation is how wildly different the interpretations are. I can't imagine seeing this video and coming away believing this is only four games the internet leaks were all lies. I assumed everyone would see it as slow walking the news since it doesn't need to be revealed until it happens.
Personally I feel like MS is such a large publisher now that they have to be on all platforms for it to make since. I gave my Series X away after Christmas but they I'm now confident that I won't miss out long term. I have little time to play so I don't mind waiting.

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Same here. Just wiped my SSD, sticking with just my PS5 right now and it feels like the best decision.

 

[Arn]

I could see Elder Scrolls launching day one on PS6 because it had an established franchise and brand familiarity with PlayStation users. This is the beauty of corporate PR speak Phil is so good at. Everyone hears what they want.

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Yes, I think you're definitely hearing what you want.

 

[TripleBee]

A safe bet is that MS will be bringing 4 games at first and eventually every other games after that.

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Yes, but it seemed pretty clear they still want Xbox hardware to succeed. So they won't be bringing anything day 1 or that they think pushes value to Xbox. So stuff like Elder Scrolls may come to PlayStation a year or two later - but their current strategy would still have it initially exclusive.

 

[Gestault]

I really liked how they framed non-exclusivity around sustainability. I also really liked their comment about how the industry has changed where some games are much bigger than any one console. I don't think any massive multiplayer or GAAS title can afford to be tied to one exclusive anymore. So, Sea of Thieves is a natural. I'd even put Forza Horizon in there as well. Both of these games would experience multiplicative, not linear, benefits to MS and the gaming community when spread across Xbox, PS, Switch 2, and PC.

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First-party studios having a sort of "fallback plan" where their earlier Xbox/PC releases could get greenlit for multi-plat (after the PC/Xbox sales curve has cooled and/or if the industry is in particularly rough shape) seems like an excellent job-security angle. It could even be a fallback if a team's main ongoing project(s) have trouble and would need to be pushed further out. A port project can plausibly be a short-term reaction when things elsewhere aren't going smoothly.

 

[SilverX]

he doesn't expect them right away, but eventually if sales keep flattening, you better believe both those companies will be releasing their games on rival consoles. Flattening growth is a death sentence with inflating budgets and more uncertainty than ever.

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XGS is in this position today because they are offering their games day one on Game Pass. Nothing about PS and Nintendo first party game sales suggest that they are in need of putting them on rival consoles. I guess when you see one platform doing something so drastic its easy to say "this is what will happen to everyone, someday!" but Sony and Nintendo use their software to get to 100+ million console sales so they wont give them up as easy or any time soon.

I think the mistake people are still making is saying things like "going forward everything is pretty much on the table to come to other consoles". That is not the case, and it's just feeding into these rumors. Games coming over on a case by case basis does not indicate that everything is on the table, there is a gulf there.

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Why would they admit to anything else right now when the reaction was so strong from buyers who wanted games to still be exclusive to Xbox? They are 100% bringing their games to PS and Nintendo, we had that confirmed today, but they STILL want to sell Xbox consoles sitting on shelves today. They are not going to say "If you are fine waiting just get a PS5 instead". But its naive to not understand that everything is on the table now, they are officially supporting PlayStation and Nintendo with their XGS software going forward

 

[Version 3.0]

Why wouldn't you have nipped this in the bud last week, none of this makes any sense.

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People were talking about Xbox all week. Is there no such thing as bad publicity? I doubt it, but maybe they disagree.

 

[Paquete_PT]

You say it's not wishful thinking but then you follow up with a paragraph filled with a bunch of "I think" lol. But you're right that multiplats are something every non NIntendo console manufacturer are going to at least consider in the next decade or so

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I'm sorry, but isn't "I think" the basis for what we do here, a videogame forum? I don't work for xbox, of course it's just my opinion. Let's see how this unfolds, hit me up next year

 

[ryan299]

I just hope this week can be a turning point in banning Jez fucking Corden and "Xbox Era" as a credible source on anything, ever. Embarrassing.

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Xbox era report wasn't denied. Phil left Starfield open. He left all games open which is where they're heading.

Jez acted like a fanboy and flip flopped all over the place. He's still a good source though. People need to learn the difference between him writing a report and twitter Jez.

 

[DongBeetle]

I'm sorry, but isn't "I think" the basis for what we do here, a videogame forum? I don't work for xbox, of course it's just my opinion. Let's see how this unfolds, hit me up next year

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It's fair, I just found the wording to be funny lol nothing major

 

[Tennis]

The content of this whole thing was not hard to predict lol.

 

[Precious Tritium]

To anyone claiming this is "nothing", ask yourself, if someone said HiFi Rush, Sea of Thieves, Pentiment and Grounded would all be coming to other consoles in 2024, how would you have reacted, honestly? Other narratives picking up steam after the initial rumours might make it seem quaint, but it's clearly a first step and a huge change.

I also don't think hardly anyone on this site genuinely thought they might announce that Xbox hardware was ending. There were concerns that moving away from exclusives would devalue the hardware which is already struggling, and that hardware would eventually be dropped as a result. It's a somewhat extreme extrapolation, but not entirely without merit.

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If this announcement came out of the blue a month ago a lot of the same people saying "it's nothing" would be losing their minds. I don't think anyone who was looking at this logically thought they would get out of hardware, it's where almost all of their game pass subs are lol. The third party hardware stuff always sounded too weird to be true as well.

This is essentially the "case by case" basis that I would say most people predicted. They didn't deny anything specific was off limits and to think they would cause this giant shift in perception just for these 4 small games to go cross platform is just nonsensical. It's just like the PS PC push with Horizon.

 

[CupOfDoom]

I don't understand that. PlayStation consoles are the lifeblood of their business. People are way too dramatic about the supposed threat to hardware.

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As long as they can reliably sell 100+ million Playstations every gen, they will continue to make them. Even if exclusives don't exist in 10 years (and thats a big big if). There is still a huge market for consoles and Sony isn't gonna just give that up.

Its not like all those ps5 owners are gonna suddenly up and buy a $2,000 gaming pc.

 

[fourfourfun]

The good thing about leaving it open is you can do as much or as little as you like.

 

[mjc]

This thread is gonna be an incredible time capsule for industry-wide comparisons in a handful of years.

 

[L11ghtman]

Yes, I think you're definitely hearing what you want.

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Crazy to be that dismissive when Xbox just told you it's bringing four games to ps5 lol. Including its best Bethesda game of the generation.

 

[calibos]

I think that's a misread, to apply those criteria as the universal rules. From 2:17, when he laid out those criteria he was explicit that he was referring to the specifics of the first four titles. Not rules of thumb for future decisions. He prefaced the specifics on the four titles with the broader view which was just that these decisions would be taken with the long term health of the xbox platform in mind, and that generally fewer and fewer games would be device exclusive in the future in his view. And then on the criteria for these 4 games specifically, it's the things like a year + after release, GAAS or smaller non-tentpole games.

edit - and as said by others, he was explicit again with Totilo that e.g. the 'year+' rule wasn't a guide re. future releases. Those criteria were just about these four games. Now of course it could continue to be the main criteria used, but he was very careful not to say it definitely would be or to tie his hands in that way.

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Sure, maybe a bit of a misread, but maybe not? The fact that he said no to Starfield and Indiana and then laid out how they chose those games first says more about their thoughts than just guessing at it.

Anyways, I am not against the strategy at all. I would get as much money as possible from other places. As long as you are offering top notch Hardware combined with all the other benefits that the Xbox Ecosystem has, combined with killer XGS/Bethesda/Acti-Blizz games, people will buy into your brand. The death of exclusives and the opening of the walled gardens would be an amazing step in the right direction for the industry health as a whole. It's already happened to some extent...Just take a look at how Helldivers has done on Steam and how Halo and Sea of Thieves has performed. Get that money for the devs and help keep them in business.

 

[Gavalanche]

I agree. Hell, at the rate things are going, I have little faith in both Xbox and PS last past next gen.

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PS will be fine, how did they come up??

 

[Granjinhaa]

the most fascinating thing about this whole situation is how wildly different the interpretations are. I can't imagine seeing this video and coming away believing this is only four games the internet leaks were all lies. I assumed everyone would see it as slow walking the news since it doesn't need to be revealed until it happens.
Personally I feel like MS is such a large publisher now that they have to be on all platforms for it to make since. I gave my Series X away after Christmas but they I'm now confident that I won't miss out long term. I have little time to play so I don't mind waiting.

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Nate's and some people leaks were true. The discord print and the other forum leaker were clearly lies. (third party hardware thing, no day one on game pass anymore, everything being multiplatform day 1)

 

[Juryvicious]

Acting like this didn't have substance is a worm-brained read. There's more than this, but this was all necessary after all the rumor-mongering:

• We got a direct rationale for why the four games involved were chosen for multi-plat, and why they didn't specify them by name now (and strongly implying some important elements of the decision)
• We had rumors that Acti-Blizz titles like CoD wouldn't be coming to Game Pass: They confirmed it was nonsense
• We had rumors that Game Pass would be phased out due to being "unsustainable": They confirmed it was nonsense
• We had rumors that new titles starting almost right away (like Indianna Jones and Starfield) were going multi-plat: They confirmed it was nonsense
• We had rumors that Xbox hardware would be phased out and Xbox would shift to only being a game publisher: They confirmed it was nonsense
• We got a solid date for the Diablo IV launch on Game Pass

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You get my vote for having this stickied lol

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This should be threadmarked tbh lol

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Dido.

If you're a gamer and don't want to stress yourself out wondering what future games will come to Nintendo and or PlayStation, get an Xbox, and don't worry about it. It's all good.

 

[Breadfan78]

They don't have to say shit, some of you weirdos desperate for them to name the games let the developers do it in their own time.
Just sitting around all day concern trolling about them not naming a game. Get a fuckin life.

 

[liquiddragon]

Did I miss it or did they not mention anything about physical xbox games leaving brick and mortar?

 

[mjc]

Did I miss it or did they not mention anything about physical xbox games leaving brick and mortar?

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Nope you didn't miss it, no mention of that aspect.

 

[Spinx]

lmao

 

[Deleted member 24052]

Why would they admit to anything else right now when the reaction was so strong from buyers who wanted games to still be exclusive to Xbox? They are 100% bringing their games to PS and Nintendo, we had that confirmed today, but they STILL want to sell Xbox consoles sitting on shelves today. They are not going to say "If you are fine waiting just get a PS5 instead". But its naive to not understand that everything is on the table now, they are officially supporting PlayStation and Nintendo with their XGS software going forward

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Saying "why would they announce everything is coming now?" is an excuse to continue feeding into the, as of now, unfounded speculation that everything is going multiplatform. A moving of goalposts, in a way. A way to make secure the assumption that everything will go multiplatform, and that your speculation is correct, because SURELY they would never announce everything is porting over now so you can't refute my speculation!

It is presumptuous to assume that everything is on the table, is the point here. Four games and then additional games on a case by case basis does not indicate that everything is on the table. That's jumping a whole armory of guns, but that's what this board has been doing for the past week as it is so why stop now.

 

[Darknight]

To anyone claiming this is "nothing", ask yourself, if someone said HiFi Rush, Sea of Thieves, Pentiment and Grounded would all be coming to other consoles in 2024, how would you have reacted, honestly? Other narratives picking up steam after the initial rumours might make it seem quaint, but it's clearly a first step and a huge change.

I also don't think hardly anyone on this site genuinely thought they might announce that Xbox hardware was ending. There were concerns that moving away from exclusives would devalue the hardware which is already struggling, and that hardware would eventually be dropped as a result. It's a somewhat extreme extrapolation, but not entirely without merit.

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Honestly, based on a spectrum of one end being nothing, to all their major exclusives are going multiplatform further down the line and then to ending Xbox console hardware being at the end of that line, based on their reasoning outlined in this video, where it falls on the line of that spectrum is way closer to nothing than things that were being thrown around.

 

[Rowsdower]

Did I miss it or did they not mention anything about physical xbox games leaving brick and mortar?

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Nope, no mention.

 

[Gavalanche]

the most fascinating thing about this whole situation is how wildly different the interpretations are. I can't imagine seeing this video and coming away believing this is only four games the internet leaks were all lies. I assumed everyone would see it as slow walking the news since it doesn't need to be revealed until it happens.
Personally I feel like MS is such a large publisher now that they have to be on all platforms for it to make since. I gave my Series X away after Christmas but they I'm now confident that I won't miss out long term. I have little time to play so I don't mind waiting.

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Which means they did a terrible job explaining it. If there's a bunch of different interpretations then that's not good messaging. Unless there was their deliberate intention :p

 

[mjc]

Sure, maybe a bit of a misread, but maybe not? The fact that he said no to Starfield and Indiana and then laid out how they chose those games first says more about their thoughts than just guessing at it.

Anyways, I am not against the strategy at all. I would get as much money as possible from other places. As long as you are offering top notch Hardware combined with all the other benefits that the Xbox Ecosystem has, combined with killer XGS/Bethesda/Acti-Blizz games, people will buy into your brand. The death of exclusives and the opening of the walled gardens would be an amazing step in the right direction for the industry health as a whole. It's already happened to some extent...Just take a look at how Helldivers has done on Steam and how Halo and Sea of Thieves has performed. Get that money for the devs and help keep them in business.

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The ideal path forward in conjunction with this is more developer unions as well.

 

[Viciaops2]

phil spencer just get out his anaconder

no starfield no indiana jones, pipers of shit, the false xboxers can lick one and another time

all activision blizzard to game pass, sons of bitch

 

[DongBeetle]

Crazy to be that dismissive when Xbox just told you it's bringing four games to ps5 lol. Including its best Bethesda game of the generation.

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You have to be self aware tho that going from 4 late ports of budget priced titles to predicting day one multiplat ES6 is kinda a big leap. It's POSSIBLE, sure, but I think it would be fair to say you would be reading mostly what you want

 

[modsbox]

ABK to GP Day 1 is big and great news.

Granted (you can see what I've said about it on other threads) I think their definition of Day 1 is quite misleading, since for all their big games you will undoubtedly have the opportunity to pay $30 or more to get 'early access' and surely CoD will be included in that list.

It does alleviates the sting of giving it away 'free' with Game Pass quite a bit, since obviously for a big competitive multiplayer game playing it on day 1 early access will be important to people.

I wonder what will happen to CoD sales on PS as a result of this. I'd imagine they are hoping that a lot of folks choose to buy an Xbox+GP and shifts over to them from PS, but I don't really see that happening. It will also be really interesting to see how sales of the 4 titles they make multiplat do. Unfortunately their community-based games are the ones that won't sell well, what would really be interesting to see would be Starfield or Forza or Halo. Would be awesome if Halo is one of the 4.

 

[gofreak]

Sure, maybe a bit of a misread, but maybe not? The fact that he said no to Starfield and Indiana and then laid out how they chose those games first says more about their thoughts than just guessing at it.

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Maybe but it was a no to the question of them being in that four. I think totally these could be the guidelines now but I would just note how carefully he didn't tie things down. I wouldn't say those games are ruled out (nor in, certainly).

Anyways, I am not against the strategy at all. I would get as much money as possible from other places. As long as you are offering top notch Hardware combined with all the other benefits that the Xbox Ecosystem has, combined with killer XGS/Bethesda/Acti-Blizz games, people will buy into your brand. The death of exclusives and the opening of the walled gardens would be an amazing step in the right direction for the industry health as a whole. It's already happened to some extent...Just take a look at how Helldivers has done on Steam and how Halo and Sea of Thieves has performed. Get that money for the devs and help keep them in business.

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Totally agreed. And I think Bond's comment about now building hardware for games rather than games for hardware was pretty on the money, and I think it's a sentiment we'll see more of. Even the Totoki comments from Sony showed a little loosening on the relationship between hardware and software.

 

[Deleted member 24052]

Which means they did a terrible job explaining it. If there's a bunch of different interpretations then that's not good messaging. Unless there was their deliberate intention :p

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I think it just comes down to people will hear what they want to hear, especially after hyping this up in their minds for a week plus.

 

[Arn]

Crazy to be that dismissive when Xbox just told you it's bringing four games to ps5 lol. Including its best Bethesda game of the generation.

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It's not dismissive. I don't think there's a single franchise that will stay on Xbox only.

I just think there's a huge chasm between what they've just said and what you're proposing.

They aren't stupid, they know they do still need to try and move hardware units and drive Game Pass subscribers. Saying "here's the next Elder Scrolls and the only way you can play it today is via Xbox" is an incredibly potent mechanism to do so and isn't going to vastly limit their overall PS5/6 sales in 12 months time.

They're basically saying that they will do what's best for their business and you're reading it as "we'll just port everything everywhere on day one, just because?"

 

[Naner]

the most fascinating thing about this whole situation is how wildly different the interpretations are. I can't imagine seeing this video and coming away believing this is only four games the internet leaks were all lies. I assumed everyone would see it as slow walking the news since it doesn't need to be revealed until it happens.
Personally I feel like MS is such a large publisher now that they have to be on all platforms for it to make since. I gave my Series X away after Christmas but they I'm now confident that I won't miss out long term. I have little time to play so I don't mind waiting.

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I have the opposite reaction, since the Xbox will bring me multiple games affordably, while I can just borrow a PS5 once a year to play one or two games there.

 

[Ashionok]

I feel like people are being way too reactionary about this, as if after watching the podcast Phil Spencer destroyed their livelihood or something cuz most of what was said imo was pretty inoffensive besides maybe not naming the games being ported.

 

[FrakEarth]

In a way, I think the lack of comprehension of what they said here might work in their favour. People will be talking about Indiana Jones and Blade and ES6 under their entirely self created expectation that it's coming to their console of choice, outlets like the Verge and "insiders" will stoke that discussion for clicks, people will speculate as to when that's happening for a year or more and in the end it'll turn out you needed a PC or an Xbox for a lot of stuff after all.

The magic leaps people are making not from what they said, but often what they didn't say, is kind of crazy.

They were quite clear on still viewing hardware as a driver of their business, and selling hardware and having to create value to do that, among the other things they mentioned, and teased next gen and possibly even a handheld in interviews - but we've got people here like "slippery slope guys, can't wait to Platinum the next Gears of War day one on my PS5"

 

[Viciaops2]

Why is TLOU2 not banned? Neil Cuckmann is clearly a zionist.

 

[Draper]

Just give me a native app for my steam deck Phil

 

[Kutaragi]

Sony started publishing games on PC since August 2020, and nothing have changed in the industry. I expect something like this to happen with Xbox games on other platforms.

They handled this fairly well in my opinion, the only losers are the "insiders".

 

[Jacknapes]

This was what I was expecting overall.

As it stands, 4 games confirmed as coming to other consoles. Now, i'm not 100% convinced that's it. I mean, Phil did say he expects as generations go on, less and less exclusives on one platform. I mean, eventually we could see more Xbox exclusive franchises on PlayStation down the road.

This podcast was more damage control more than anything else. If anything, it does solidify that Xbox is here to stay.

 

[Viciaops2]

Persona fans are pedophiles

 

[j7vikes]

Just finished with it. Not kept up with the thread as was focused on it and way too many pages to catch up on now!

Absolutely horrendously handled from the outset. The vacuum only served to make Xbox games going to other platforms a much wider story than it would have been if addressed quickly. The only potential benefit to MS is that the hyperbole has seemingly inoculated some against the significance of this. It's insane to suggest porting 4 games with no multiplatform history, released by studios well after they were acquired is a "nothing burger" (I absolutely hate that phrase too)

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Not a fan of nothing burger either but that's another thing. It doesn't make sense either. It's absolutely a big deal. It's only viewed as nothing because of the outlandish things people said that never made sense. It's the history portion that matters. This is a change in strategy. This is searching for more revenue by giving games to companies you have consistently been trying to defeat for years. And largely trying to defeat them with exclusives. Which is also what they were doing. The argument for so long has been get this console to play this game. You won't get it elsewhere. And the acquisitions, deals, paying for timed exclusives, paying for extra content, all that entails.

It's absolutely significant. I can't even imagine arguing it isn't. The only argument of it not mattering that even makes sense is "well if you view it from the lenses of the nonsense people were saying."

This could eventually be where the industry is headed yes. It's likely not going to happen soon if ever for Sony and Nintendo. Saying it's nothing makes no sense.

 

[GlitchyDegree]

I agree. Hell, at the rate things are going, I have little faith in both Xbox and PS last past next gen.

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PlayStation will be fine. The brand is gaming for millions of people, and that won't change for a long time.

 

[t67443]

Did all those people in other threads claiming they were going to sell their Xbox get vindicated?

Is the sky still falling?

 

[Titanpaul]

Sony started publishing games on PC since August 2020, and nothing have changed in the industry. I expect something like this to happen with Xbox games on other platforms.

They handled this fairly well in my opinion, the only losers are the "insiders".

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And those holding out hope they'll get games they want on PlayStation. By keeping it vague they can pick and choose titles and timeline. Those assuming "all titles" are gonna be ported should probably just get a PC or Xbox.

 

[Anya7890]

MS is so stupid. The smaller games won't make anyone jump to Xbox, not saying the games right now and mentioning games that are a year old or so were part of the consideration, this isn't going to stop any of the rumors of multi-plat games.

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The only smaller games that Would be perfect for this, is the small triple A stuff such as hell blade 2 & south of midnight (I get small aaa vibes from it.) hi fi rush is a great game, but it won't give the growth they seek.

 

[Ashionok]

Persona fans are pedophiles

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uhh.. this is a weird drive by post