Quote:
Originally Posted by OutOfTheCube
The lack of exclusives is a big deal though, it's what has them firmly in third place and spending billions trying to buy big exclusives to claw out of it. It's the one thing their competitors excel at. This gen has played out almost exactly like last so far, where the built in Xbox audience of 20-30 million pick up the console in the first couple years, then it falls way, way behind Sony as time goes on.
Their Game Pass numbers aren't where they want them to be either:
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/...-year-running/
Why? Well, the big draw is exclusive first party games coming on day one, which there hasn't been any of note recently. There's only so many people and so long they'll subscribe for to play indie games and AA's -- and now Sony is offering a decent version of that service too.
I don't think Starfield being a bomb is a make or break for a company with as much money as MS, but they really need something to start shifting the narrative and driving people to the Xbox / Game Pass platform, and everything else they're working seems years away at this point. And no, it's not just about the games and selling games, otherwise it would be on PS5 too. |
Well said.
I was one of the people who bought a Series X at launch thinking that Xbox had learned their lesson after last gen, but there has been nothing that’s spoken to me. Game Pass is cool, but I doubt it’s profitable and with the limited amount of free time I have I would rather just own the games I actually get to play.
To me, the subscription model just doesn’t make sense for games like it does for movies and tv. You spent way more time with a single game than a movie or tv show.
Microsoft has spent billions acquiring all of these studios, but from outsiders perspective it looks like they can’t manage them. It’s a shame what happened with 343 and Halo. They announced the Perfect Dark reboot 3 years ago and it’s been radio silence since except for the fact that they had to bring on Crystal Dynamics to help with development.
They talked big game with The Initiative being a AAAA studio, but by all accounts it’s been a mismanaged mess.
I can’t think of one game that I’ve played on my Xbox that I really enjoyed that couldn’t play elsewhere.
I really don’t like they direction Microsoft is trying to force the industry towards.