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Xbox has just uploaded their Official Xbox Podcast regarding Xbox and their business going forward in the industry, with the podcast lasting for around 22 minutes, and while the podcast isn't that long, it does cover quite a bunch of things regarding exclusivities, Game Pass and other things.

We'll sum up the points as Phil and his team talks about them:

1. Four game titles will be coming to other consoles. As to what those 4 games are, it's still unknown. Phil mentions how some games, despite them having reached their "completion" status for about a year or so, have build a strong community and are still going strong as of today, and this one of the key reasons to expand the reach of said games. Two of the 4 games are those community-driven games.
   
   
2. Xbox plans on making their future titles to focus on "playing the games you want, with the people you want, anywhere you want, when everybody plays, we all win", which is part of their strategy for years now, and they want to continue it to expand and grow the games industry.
   
   
3. For AAA titles coming to Xbox's Game Pass, Matt Booty comments on this, mentioning 3 keys aspects:
   1. All of our games will be on the Xbox platform
   2. All of our games will go into Game Pass on day one
   3. Game Pass will only be available on Xbox
      Matt mentions that while they have games being exclusive to Xbox, they want to make them available to more players as well, and also cites two key aspects, which are cross-play and cross-saves.
      
4. Activision and Blizzard games are coming to Game Pass, and they will start off with Diablo IV on March 28th. They also mention that there's currently around 34 million players on Game Pass.
   
   
5. Phil specified that he wants Xbox to be a platform for creators to reach the most players possible.
   
   
6. Phill talks about how some of their games and franchises have indeed been multi-platform for several years even on mobile devices, and while he understands that this is a success on its own to reach more players, he mentions that at the end of the day and from a business perspective, the Xbox hardware is a key component, and that they're gonna have Xbox players across all kinds of devices.
   
   
7. They want to keep up with the industry by wanting players believe that they will find the best games on platforms they love, they want people who invest their careers to work there (Xbox), to feel it's a place where they can be successful. Phil also cites two ways of how to go forward in the on-going industry business, one which is to cater to the already existing player base to monetize from them, or find new ways to expand and reach new players so they are added to the current player base.
   
   
8. Matt talks about communities for highly popular franchises, like Call of Duty and Minecraft, and mentions two key factors when it comes to established communities and what devices they choose to play in, which is what platform do the player's friend play at, and what platform have the players built their library of games. Sarah Bond mentions specifically Palworld by Pocket Pair as one title that achieved outsized success, with it being the largest third party Game Pass release launch ever, by giving the creators options on how they can launch their games, with multiple options ranging from PC/Steam, consoles, retail, subscription, free-to-play, game preview, etc.
   
   
9. Sarah also mentions that while Xbox is their flagship hardware, that the options they give to creators and developers allows them to make their game run great on Xbox, but additionally, and thanks to their investments on recent years, that their game will be able to be accessed through any "screen" (possibly referring to streaming/cloud). She also mentions some "exciting stuff coming out in hardware that we're gonna share this holiday season", so perhaps a new revision or something else of the sorts for Xbox might be coming by the end of the year (through that's merely speculation). They also have their own roadmap in regards for the next generation.
   
   
10. Phil Spencer goes into some talk in regards to game libraries and their preservation, as well as compatibility between older titles and more modern hardware, and says that he plans to "respect" that investment that people make on Xbox going forward, saying that it's part of Xbox's foundation to do so and to try to keep things like cloud saves and other services for as long as they can.
    
    
11. To wrap up, Sarah Bond mentions that Xbox is a platform where some of the biggest games in the world are always gonna be in, and alongside that, they have Game Pass, which will feature new game releases on day one, and additional options like player-first features, cross-play, cross-save, cross-progression, backwards compatibility, and their cloud gaming investments lets Xbox players play from anywhere they desire.

And that's a wrap, Matt mentions at the end that they have around 10 major releases coming up in 2024, with some of those being Hellblade 2 and the Diablo Expansion, Indiana Jones, Avowed, Ara, and others.

 

[Axido]

Console wars are over, and PC won. Even as a collector who owns every Nintendo and Sony system released up to this point, it's only gonna be desktops and portable PCs for me from here on out. Not worth buying systems for two or three long-term exclusives, or exclusives which are easily emulated.

I'm totally fine with buying a console for the gimmick controllers and the ability to easily play games with my friends online while sitting on the couch. Emulation is nice for your average singleplayer game, though.

 

[YoureALoser]

Console wars are over, and PC won. Even as a collector who owns every Nintendo and Sony system released up to this point, it's only gonna be desktops and portable PCs for me from here on out. Not worth buying systems for two or three long-term exclusives, or exclusives which are easily emulated.

Laughable at best. You're only right about one thing, console wars are over. PC isn't console, and even if you were to categorize it as such, it lost long ago. PC lost when physical media went away. Digital only = billions in revenue lost & you don't own your games. Microsoft lost by sharing the Xbox library with PC. Sony is following in Microsoft's footsteps. Nintendo wins even when they use outdated, bottom tier hardware that's easily emulated.

 

[Xzi]

I'm totally fine with buying a console for the gimmick controllers and the ability to easily play games with my friends online while sitting on the couch.

For the sake of convenience, that's a perfectly fine option. So is hooking up a laptop or Steam Deck to your TV, though, and those are compatible with every single controller on the market rather than just a limited few.

Digital only = billions in revenue lost & you don't own your games.

Nonsense, Steam is raking in more revenue than next-gen Playstation and Xbox systems combined. Digital only = less overhead costs, and "not owning your games" isn't a legitimate concern when you can simply crack them and back them up on an external drive if you feel it's necessary. Much as I love my physical collections, it still must be acknowledged that the lifespan of discs is finite, they become unreadable after a time even when stored in the most optimal environment.

Nintendo wins even when they use outdated, bottom tier hardware that's easily emulated.

They didn't win during the Wii U era, that's for sure. They have to consistently offer something new and novel to keep their customer base coming back for more, which isn't really sustainable in the long term. When push comes to shove, software is king, and constraining it to a single platform equates to foolishly leaving money on the table.

 

[eyeliner]

This podcast was mainly targeted to investors, I'd say.

For the customers, there was nothing new, besides the promises of "we'll never leave you."

For the investors is a "relax, we have a solid pathway in front of us, with your investment being secure."

I'm fine with that. They basically said that there will be no letting go of the hardware side.

 

[oceanman]

if you can't beat them join them

 

[Bladexdsl]

They basically said that there will be no letting go of the hardware side.

sega said the same thing once

 

[AlexMCS]

I still chuckle internally at people that swear by physical media, when it "died" for in 2006 with the PS3, and LMAO at people who still believe PC isn't the ultimate gaming platform: it has been the undisputed best since the end of Sony's exclusivity on their first-party games, and was already the overall better option for quite some time.

It's even funnier when it comes to digital games on PC, where 99.9% of everything is cracked and you can just give the middle finger to the greedy companies if they ever want to subtract your games from you by simply pirating them.

New console generations have too small of an impact to differentiate themselves from simply upgrading our PCs (or even just using the previous gen. It's amazing that we're ~halfway~ or more on the PS5's life and the PS4/cross-gen is still viable).

Nintendo is the only thing keeping consoles semi-relevant for now, mainly for their first party support, and even that depends on their next console. If it's another underpowered, easily emulated hardware like the NSwitch, consoles are dead.

 

[Luke94]

In recent weeks, we have heard more and more that Microsoft wants to change the Xbox brand policy, which we will learn next week. However, the rumors that have circulated the Internet over the last few days do not fill us with any optimism, but rather raise considerable concerns.
The current situation on the console market seems to be very difficult for Microsoft, which has been losing to Sony consoles in recent months in a ratio of 3:1 or even 4:1, and according to data provided by Take-Two, the overall result may be at the level of 2:1 (51 million PS5 to 26 million Xbox Series X|S). As Phil Spencer put it last year, Microsoft has miserably lost the most important generation possible, the duel between Xbox One and PlayStation 4. That's why they're currently so behind and why they had to take drastic purchasing steps by acquiring all of ZeniMax and Activision-Blizzard.
If you remember my article from a few months ago, you certainly know that I supported Phil Spencer's policy and I was one of those who saw the legitimacy of the Activision-Blizzard acquisition transaction as Microsoft's only chance to fight PlayStation on an equal footing in the future. Today, however, I am very concerned about the information reaching us from the USA and even though we have not yet learned the official position of the company, as it is often said, there is no smoke without fire, and the latest rumors have turned gray in the air.

The difficult past of the Xbox brand

For quite a few years now, it has been said that the future of Xbox is bleak and this is the result not only of the growing dynamics of competition, but above all of significant omissions on the part of Microsoft, which instead of focusing on good exclusive games began to play with services and other alternative things. Apart from the disastrous presentation of Xbox One, the third console of the "greens" really had the potential to fight PlayStation 4 on equal terms.

However, we all know how it happened. Throughout the entire generation, the Xbox One received virtually no exclusive game breaking the beret. We only have Forza Horizon 2-4, Psychonauts 2, both versions of Ori, the first Titanfall and... and that's it. Nothing more. Even looking at Metacritic, it turns out that in the top 100 best-rated games on Xbox One, the only titles from Xbox Game Studios are Forza Horizon and Forza Motorsport 6 - you can also force Killer Instinct, which falls short compared to other fighting games. very pale. Halo MCC is only number 107, Rare Replay is number 121, Gears 5 is number 127 in the ranking, then there are Gears 4 (128) and Halo 5: Guardians (129). As you can see, since Microsoft was unable to provide such "seller systems" as those of Sony or Nintendo, it is difficult to say that the only reason behind the failure of Xbox One is the infamous "Xbox TV, TV, TV".

It's not easy at the beginning of this generation either. Xbox Series Nobody is likely to buy a console for Microsoft Flight Simulator, and Psychonauts 2, according to the contracts, had to be released on PlayStation and PC anyway. So what are we left with? The great Hi-Fi Rush, Halo: Infinite (which no one wants to play even for free), Age of Empires 2 (a game from 2 decades ago), Pentiment and Forza Motorsport, which disappointed even the hardest fans of the brand. Ah, and Starfield - the biggest failure in the history of Bethesda and Todd Howard. Once again, it's clear that many people simply don't want to buy an Xbox Series just for one race, a small rhythm game, a very niche detective RPG and two AAA games of questionable quality.

PlayStation 5 fares better in this respect, where, despite the fact that Sony itself did not give us much, it ensured the exclusivity of other long-awaited games. An alternative to Xbox is the new Ratchet, Spider-Man, God of War, Horizon, Gran Turismo 7, Demon's Souls, Final Fantasy XVI and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth. Each of these productions is a real system seller.
Is Xbox going to give up?

It is very disturbing, however, that at the moment when Microsoft is armed to the teeth to fight Sony, it intends to give up on walkover. Personally, I was counting on a really serious fight for exclusive titles. Xbox would now have a new Blade, Indiana Jones, Doom, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft, StarCraft, Quake, Fable, Prey, Dishonored, The Evil Within and a lot of other absolutely phenomenal IP that are really worth buying the console for . With so many companies, Microsoft can flood the Xbox Series with powerful "exes" every three months and restore the market to the state from the times of Xbox 360, where the fight with PS3 was really evenly matched.

But if the rumors turn out to be true and key Xbox Game Studios exclusive games go multiplatform, owning an Xbox will simply lose any point. Why? Well, who in their right mind would buy Xbox Series instead of PlayStation 5, when on PS5 they will have both Sony and Microsoft games, and on Xbox only their productions, without God of War, Horizon or Spider-Man. No Game Pass will help here, because while people can pay subscriptions for some side games that they wouldn't normally buy, despite the considerable digitization of the gaming medium, we still buy the most important games in boxes. Sony knows this very well, because about 50% of their "ex" products are distributed through physical distribution.

The new digital future of Xbox will therefore not be very well received. Even if we heard a denial next week about bringing its games to PlayStation 5, Microsoft is still shooting itself in the foot by giving Hellblade II only digitally. Maybe in 10 or 15 years it will be like that, but it's still too early for such drastic moves in the largest productions. Unfortunately, there are many indications that Microsoft dreams of a future without "exes" and without divisions. Which is plain utopia and will turn Xbox into a second Sega.
Sony Monopoly and Nintendo Monopoly

After Xbox leaves the console market, we will have a double monopoly in the video game industry. Why not a duopoly? Let's be honest - Nintendo has been going its own way for a long time and is a separate category of console that is purchased as an addition to the home Xbox/PlayStation/PC set. No one is wondering whether they will buy Nintendo equipment instead of Sony and Microsoft equipment in the near future. It is currently a blue-green duopoly, which has resulted in the most interesting titles and greatest efforts of both companies in the times of Xbox 360 and PS3. Therefore, if there is no alternative to Sony consoles, the Japanese will no longer have any competition. Probably for the next dozen or even several dozen years - because what businessman will get into a business where not even Microsoft, worth 3 TRILLION, won with Sony.

There are those here and on the Internet in general who would welcome the news of Xbox's demise with a smile on their faces. But that's very, very bad thinking. Without competition there is no alternative, and without it the monopolist can do whatever he wants. What do I think this will result in? Will Sony and PlayStation dictate the terms they like? We buy games for $70 in bulk? Well, the price will be raised to $80, then $90, and then even $100. Same with PlayStation Plus - want to play online? You have to pay. And without any other option, the subscription price could go up by 100 or 200%. Why? Well, what else would a typical "blacksmith" do? Will he stop playing? Will he force himself to play on a PC he simply doesn't like playing on? Either way, people will pay anyway because they will want to play anyway.

Nintendo will not become a competitor to Sony because it does not want to be. The same pattern has been operating here for several generations, the good old policy of tough exes selling the console and no attempt at an arms race in the category of computing power. 140 million Switches sold seem to confirm that people generally don't care how many frames or pixels a game has. What matters is the fun of playing and the reputation of a given game. And the fact that there is no real competitor for the Switch in its own category means that Mario Kart 8 Deluxe still costs the same as on the day of release. Because people will buy it anyway. And, in my opinion, it will be the same with PlayStation - 15 years after its premiere, we will still be buying Uncharted 5 for PLN 339-400.

 

[eyeliner]

sega said the same thing once

Sega was bipolar, then.

 

[ShadowOne333]

Sega was bipolar, then.

To be fair, Nintendo has also done the same in several occasions,one is when they blatantly said that the Switch wouldn't be a replacement for the 3DS, and as soon as it dropped the 3DS pretty much faded out of existence and to this day there's no successor to it after 7 years of the Switch's life span.

 

[subcon959]

digital games on PC, where 99.9% of everything is cracked

That's no longer true I'm afraid. Denuvo has been a bitch the last couple years, and there aren't many who can fully defeat it. I'm sure I read somewhere that in 2022 only 1 out 36 Denuvo games got cracked.

 

[BakerMan]

Well, looks like the rumors had merit after all.
Kind of odd that the cross-platform games are coming to other platforms (especially since the community has a pretty good idea of what they are...)
That, and I still can't get over the name Matt Booty.

You think Matt Booty is a weird name, the Fred movies were (or at least the first one was) directed by Clay Weiner

 

[DeadSkullzJr]

People keep comparing consoles to a computer. Look, good for you if you have a preference, going out of your way to talk about how better something is just because one side has more of a dynamic arsenal of interchangeable hardware is rather a stupid point to make. The point of a console is meant to be for pure entertainment, a computer has more than one use outside that department, no fucking shit it's going to be more powerful and offer more, it's a computer what do you expect, it's multipurpose. This whole P.C. master race thing is rather old, annoying, and honestly sounds like underperforming appreciation for anything because you clearly have the priorities in the wrong places. Power isn't everything, people just expect more than what they need to establish their weird morphed sense of "fun." Consoles stick out in their own right, even if you want to get nitty gritty and technical to say "they all compute therefore they are computers." I'm sorry but some of you can come off really freaking bland and or boring when you talk about stuff like this, it just seems like you have zero senses of appreciation for anything if it doesn't fit whatever high funky standards you have and or expect.

It's not a matter of how much power your damn system has, that means absolutely nothing if the contents for it aren't even good in the first place. The enjoyment of a game wasn't about it being on a powerful system, it's about the aspects of the game itself, the story, the gameplay, etc. having all the extra bells and whistles was never that important that it superseded what makes games good in the first place. We've gotten plenty of titles that didn't go all out with the bells and whistles and still ended up being solid entries in gaming history, it's just harder to come by these days with the whole broken release issues and such. If you can't even see that, then it's no wonder you have difficulties settling.

 

[Vanessa__]

The four games coming to PS5/Switch are supposedly Sea of Thieves, Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, and Grounded. All in all though, the whole thing sounded like an attempt to let down the die-hard fanboys easy, so I wouldn't be surprised if everything goes multiplat in the future.

Awww I wanted Elder Scrolls 6 on PS5

 

[Mike_77712]

buzz word buzz word buzz word. ms can chew glass lol. scum corpo

 

[Xzi]

People keep comparing consoles to a computer. Look, good for you if you have a preference, going out of your way to talk about how better something is just because one side has more of a dynamic arsenal of interchangeable hardware is rather a stupid point to make. The point of a console is meant to be for pure entertainment, a computer has more than one use outside that department, no fucking shit it's going to be more powerful and offer more, it's a computer what do you expect, it's multipurpose.

I think you're a couple generations late to be trying to make that point. Consoles are multimedia systems now, through and through. They boast a lot of features which have nothing to do with gaming, and some which are only tangentially related to gaming, such as social media connectivity.

On the flip side, if we're comparing apples to apples with PC gaming specifically, the platform offers multiple advantages beyond simply extra graphical horsepower. Free online play, accessible game modding, emulation, compatibility with all controller types/brands, nearly unlimited backward compatibility, in-home streaming to other devices, your choice of save backup methods, the list goes on and on.

The discussion ultimately boils down to walled garden versus open platform, and it's impossible to deny that gamers benefit massively from having open access to their systems. Otherwise we wouldn't be discussing this on a site dedicated to finding methods of breaking down those walls.

It's not a matter of how much power your damn system has, that means absolutely nothing if the contents for it aren't even good in the first place. The enjoyment of a game wasn't about it being on a powerful system, it's about the aspects of the game itself, the story, the gameplay, etc.

I agree. So what exactly is the downside of a platform with access to the widest possible library of games, indies and retro included? The end of exclusivity would benefit everybody, whereas right now the half-measures taken by Sony and Microsoft are solely to the benefit of PC gamers. Nintendo certainly does not deserve kudos for being the most anti-consumer company of the bunch, either.

 

[Axido]

For the sake of convenience, that's a perfectly fine option. So is hooking up a laptop or Steam Deck to your TV, though, and those are compatible with every single controller on the market rather than just a limited few.

I do that from time to time. Heck, I got a cable so long I just use the Deck as the controller while having it hooked to the big screen. Yet, I played the entirety of Advance Wars 1+2 on the Switch natively after it crashed multiple times on the Steam Deck. It's a mixed bag sometimes. But if a game works, I get what you mean.

 

[LightBeam]

The 4 games they're talking about are Hifi Rush, Sea of Thieves, Grounded and Pentiment

I feel like Spencer was willing to talk a bit about the real stuff, but the gal next to him bruh. She said that Xbox gamers know that they're playing « the best games » yeah idk you released this Forza Motorsport, Starmid and Redfall in the same year ...
As much as I like Xbox for what they're doing on PC, I just can't stand this PR shit show

Basically they're releasing 4 games on Playstation and Switch, that's about it.

Also pretty funny when she was saying that they have loads of features like « cross play, cross ... save ! cross ..... progression ? » yeah ... huge features indeed. Crossplay doesn't even work on PC gamepass on Darktides and Palworld with Steam users but yeah ....
Speaking of Palworld, felt like she was throwing herself some flowers as if they were the biggest thirdparty success on gamepass because of them. I mean, they broke records in Steam too and that was without you



Honestly, the only thing I want Xbox to do now is to finally build the best controller. They literally just have to take the one they've already made, add a gyro, paddles and a removable battery. Boom, done, literally the perfect controller and THEN they'll be able to talk about « how you can play however you want on Xbox » because no one fucking gives a shit about cloud. I'm not playing Sea of Thieves or shit on my phone with a touchscreen, even less with my 5G plan.

 

[Luke94]

Midtown Madness 3 seemed to be original Microsoft Xbox title,but does it mean that Midtown Madness 4 would be Microsoft Xbox Series X exclusive or rather Microsoft Windows 12 PC exclusive?

 

[ZeroFX]

What a joke, corporate scum now do "podcasts" to the plebs huh!? Xbox as console is dead, no reason to own one, even Playstation, with snoy abandoning Japan principles and having no exclusives worth buying the console anymore. Just stick with PC, infinite potential.