The last few days have featured a bunch of finger-pointing within the gaming industry. Both Sony and Microsoft have done serious “faux pas” that have drawn the ire of not just gamers but people within their own company and the industry as a whole. While Sony was able to backtrack its issue, Microsoft hasn’t been so lucky. They closed down four businesses within their umbrella, with a majority coming from Bethesda, and then they had the gall to cite one of the closed down businesses games as something they “need.” And then, there’s Xbox Game Pass and the problems it’s causing.
If you’ve been paying attention to Microsoft, and especially Xbox head Phil Spencer, they’ve been praising the Xbox Game Pass as a “revolutionary new thing” in the gaming industry and something that could help both gamers and developers in the long term. However, according to ex-Microsoft employee Brad Hilderbrand, it’s not that simple. Here’s a post he made online that was eventually posted on Twitter that sums up how he feels everything is going down with Xbox and its game pass, and it’s certainly enlightening:
As you can see, he called out the “process” by which Game Pass is supposed to help Xbox titles in both the long and short term. Not the least of which is how the sales of the pass have slowed down considerably over the past year or so, and thus, the “bumps” that games are getting are minimal and don’t last long.
Then, as Hilderbrand also accurately points out, the other issue that led to the closures of companies like Tango Gameworks and Arkane Austin is that the Xbox brand has been making purchases left and right over the last several years to “bolster its gaming lineup,” and it’s cost Microsoft many billions of dollars. It was $70 billion alone for the Activision Blizzard deal, which not only included a long legal battle but almost immediate layoffs once the companies merged. Not a good look.
And when you look at the overall sales of the Xbox Series X/S, it’s sold just under 28 million units since its launch in 2020, and those numbers aren’t climbing. If they’re not climbing, then the Xbox Game Pass subscriptions won’t climb with it.
That’s why so many people feel that more Xbox exclusives, as few as they are, will continue to go to other platforms and that more closures within the Xbox brand are imminent.
