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Opinion: Phil Spencer, long cast as Xbox’s saviour, may be remembered as the man who killed it
(www.videogameschronicle.com)
this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2024
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I don't think it's a death, it's more of a transition. Firstly, a lot of XBox games have been coming to PC, intentionally, because Microsoft basically own the market*. They've also created XCloud + Game pass, possibly the most convenient way to play games, and you don't need an XBox.
The real people who've turned on the device itself has been devs. Some of the stuff they've been saying at GDC have been at the same level as the stuff they say about Linux as a target. Like your game shouldn't be that dependent on platform, it hurts things like archival.
You have to ask yourself why. Devs are professionals by definition, for them the context is ease of developing along with potential to make a return on investment. Xbox (console) is now a problem on both those metrics. Simple as that, no fanboying or villifying required.
Its just not a big enough market and a good portion of the market is GP'ified and doesn't spend outside of it. Couple that with dual SKU targets with real challenges working around the S memory constraints and here we are.
But I agree that its a transition. Away from the current hardware model.
Hard agree
I (and I believe you) are talking about Microsoft in context. The latest SkillUp video talks about Spencer's role and what his strategy is, and I think it's fairly astute. He says: you don't see Nintendo or even Sony say the same things as MS here. Their businesses are growing because they have created something compelling for the market. I think Microsoft's view is that the money is in the software, so why bother with the hardware? I think this is at least half true, so we'll have to see, but often the point of the hardware is to bring something to market which isn't really possible with just software. The Wii was an example of that. The Switch is a sort-of example of that.
Having said that, almost all the examples are "first party". Switch games suck (many are on Steam Deck and the Steam Deck version is better), but Nintendo Switch games are great. Sony third party games are just as good on PC, but Sony first party titles are great, so maybe this is a gap in SkillUp's thinking here. Like: Why when you can just sell the whole thing to PC? Especially why when the EU is eventually going to force, say, Nintendo to offer third party app stores on the Switch 2?