2024 hasn’t been the best year for Xbox and for a multitude of reasons. One of the biggest was because of the massive layoffs that they’ve done that now number over 2000, with people like Phil Spencer trying to “explain away” why these happened despite the “clear money” they’ve spent to try and improve and expand the Xbox brand. Then, there’s the lack of exclusives that grew even smaller, as many were announced to go to PS5. Not to mention, there are highly anticipated games that just aren’t going to Xbox at all. That’s something the Xbox Research team is trying to figure out.
In a special blog post, Microsoft posted that the research team is determined to “learn from creators” to try and understand why developer teams aren’t coming to the Xbox line of systems:
“The objective is to listen to developer partners in the Xbox ecosystem and partner with product teams to bring forward insights and data that could help improve future tools and services. By directly engaging with game creators, Xbox aims to get the data that’ll help address pain points and enhance the experience of partners across the spectrum of disciplines involved in bringing games to market.”
Dr. Deborah Hendersen is one of the heads of the Xbox Research division, and she straight up asks people to talk with them about making video games so that both sides can grow:
“If you are making video games, we’re interested in hearing from you. If you aren’t on Xbox, we’d love to know why. And honestly, if you are using our competitor’s products, you probably have a great perspective we could learn from.”
The blog post itself is incredibly wordy and frames it as an “open discussion” for creators to “voice their thoughts” to Microsoft and Xbox as a whole.
The problem is that it reads as a bit desperate and highlights the internal problems that Xbox is facing. The Xbox Series X/S is failing largely and is barely moving any units. Meanwhile, the Xbox Game Pass is also stagnating in sales, and it’s costing Xbox a lot of money just to keep it going and attempt to keep it relevant.
On the exclusive front, one reason many games haven’t gotten onto the platform or got there much later than other platforms is various “technical issues” that keep popping up, not to mention certain “restrictions” that Microsoft puts on those titles.
You don’t need a research team to find out the truth, you just need to look at the mistakes that Xbox has made in this generation.
