Xbox had a remarkable showcase this past Sunday, but with it, it revealed its misguided plan to bring back players. It will not save them.
If you clicked on this article, you already know what I am going to say. But I am still going to say it because it irritates me to my core. Xbox proudly announcing the return of console exclusives is a deeply misguided move. Not only has it been proven that players will happily support their games on other platforms, but this igniting of the console wars is archaic, to say the least.
Yes, longtime Xbox militants like Klobrille or ColtEastwood (if you don’t know them, lucky you) are rejoicing that their beloved publisher will now reach fewer players. Meanwhile, sensible players are going to simply move on and play it if and when they can. Forza Horizon 5 sold 5 million copies on PlayStation 5.
We Have Been Through This
What I find baffling most of all is that they had already ripped the Band-Aid off. Just two years ago they made a big splash at Summer Game Fest 2024 revealing that Indiana Jones and the Great Circle would arrive on PlayStation 5. Asha Sharma took no time to enact her “Return to Xbox” plan, and for what? To go back to an era where things were different? We are not in the 2000s anymore. The wealth gap is increasing by the second. People have to choose between buying groceries or a new game. It’s obvious what they are going to decide.
And it’s not like they have not tried everything. The “This is an Xbox” campaign was a bold move to entice new ways to play. Ironically enough, there was a time when I had already played through the Xbox app on my Samsung TV or my Quest 3. I do not count in that regard, as it is my hobby, and I am certain it did not move the needle in the least for audiences at large. While technically sound, nobody wants to play a game through the cloud to suffer through frame drops, lower graphics quality, and latency issues. The technology is still not there. At least not worldwide.
New Solutions, Same Old Xbox
We have been down this path before. There was a time when Nintendo, Sony, and PlayStation vied for consumers’ attention with their flagship exclusives. Adult- or family-friendly oriented, the choices were clear. But that was a time when consoles actually lowered their prices as time went by. And so Xbox pivoted to releasing their games on Steam in May 2019. You see, once you opened Pandora’s box, you simply cannot go back. And this goes double for Sony.
I have seen the numbers of their copies sold on Steam. It hurt me, frankly. How is it possible that Returnal, a first-class third-person bullet hell shooter, only sold about 250,000 copies? A mix between PC ports releasing broken at launch, being published much later, or lack of marketing is to blame, certainly. Because the product itself is stellar. That is where the problem lies for me. How will you know how great your product is if people do not play it? It is interesting that the next, more action-focused Senua and Fable will launch on PlayStation and not others. This guessing game is tiresome.
PlayStation players wholeheartedly embraced Xbox games. Just take a look at Sea of Thieves, Doom: The Dark Ages, or Indy. I surmise this exclusive pivot will not only backfire but lower sales when they do arrive to other platforms. The profitability of Xbox Game Pass is debatable. Not to mention the thousands of developers that have been fired by Microsoft. Again, only to appease loudmouthed people online? I wish executives did not try to be “relatable” on social media.
Conclusion
The first month Starfield released on PlayStation, it sold 140,000 copies. I doubt investors will look at the sales numbers in a year of Gears of War E-Day (which apparently had its PS5 logo scrubbed from the trailer at the last minute) and Clockwork Revolution and congratulate Asha Sharma. It is only a matter of time.
Capitulating to grifters who stoke division is never the answer. Some people might think their allegiance to a box is what defines them, but it does not. It never did. Your allegiance, if you are an Xbox fan and reading this, is to the beautiful works of art called video games. And those belong to everybody.
