Xbox must fully embrace third-party and Xbox Game Pass to find success – but is Microsoft struggling to see the bigger picture?
Xbox Game Pass has always, in my mind, been a wonderfully enticing offering. Pay a relatively small fee each month/year in exchange for an ever-revolving door of games to play. These games would span the genres, the scale, and budgets that the industry offers, giving a curated taste that would satisfy the majority of people looking to play as a hobby without the need to be so 'online' they know the shoe size of every developer working today. But there's always been a problem: Xbox doesn't have the big games, and its biggest rarely make die-hard fans of other platforms jealous.Right now, years into a ridiculous period of spending, Xbox is the owner of some of the very biggest games, the kind of IP pretty much every publisher on the planet would be envious of. It has Call of Duty, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Diablo, World of Warcraft, Doom, Halo, Sea of Thieves, Gears of War, Forza Horizon, Minecraft, Starcraft, Crash Bandicoot, Wolfenstein… I could go on. Go deeper and there's a treasure trove of loved but underused franchises, too, plus a raft of titles that look super promising.Cue the massive balls up. Xbox's recent closure of four Bethesda studios, including Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin, were reportedly due in part to those studios not having any games coming soon. That's a bizarre, borderline inept, reason to shut quality studios that have a history of creating award-winning games. Prestige games that turn heads and make noise. You have a reputation for a lack of games, so you close studios responsible for some amazing games. Xbox has always faced an uphill battle winning over the 'community' and given its enormous resources are justly mired in negativity when things like this happen. Read more
Xbox Game Pass has always, in my mind, been a wonderfully enticing offering. Pay a relatively small fee each month/year in exchange for an ever-revolving door of games to play. These games would span the genres, the scale, and budgets that the industry offers, giving a curated taste that would satisfy the majority of people looking to play as a hobby without the need to be so 'online' they know the shoe size of every developer working today. But there's always been a problem: Xbox doesn't have the big games, and its biggest rarely make die-hard fans of other platforms jealous.
Right now, years into a ridiculous period of spending, Xbox is the owner of some of the very biggest games, the kind of IP pretty much every publisher on the planet would be envious of. It has Call of Duty, Fallout, Elder Scrolls, Diablo, World of Warcraft, Doom, Halo, Sea of Thieves, Gears of War, Forza Horizon, Minecraft, Starcraft, Crash Bandicoot, Wolfenstein… I could go on. Go deeper and there's a treasure trove of loved but underused franchises, too, plus a raft of titles that look super promising.
Cue the massive balls up. Xbox's recent closure of four Bethesda studios, including Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin, were reportedly due in part to those studios not having any games coming soon. That's a bizarre, borderline inept, reason to shut quality studios that have a history of creating award-winning games. Prestige games that turn heads and make noise. You have a reputation for a lack of games, so you close studios responsible for some amazing games. Xbox has always faced an uphill battle winning over the 'community' and given its enormous resources are justly mired in negativity when things like this happen.
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