- Written by Zoe Kleinman
- Technology editor
Microsoft's four Xbox video games (which the company frustratingly didn't name) will be released to alternative platforms for the first time, company president Phil Spencer announced to the world last night.
He only gave a few hints. All four are community-driven, are over a year old, and do not include the recently released Starfield or Indiana Jones.
This feels like a major shift in gear for Microsoft, which has long championed the exclusivity of its Xbox platform and Games Pass subscription service.
So what's behind this change, and what does it tell us about the future of gaming?
Let's start with a 12-year-old son I know.
He loves Minecraft and plays it wherever he can. On his phone, his tablet, our PlayStation, and his dad's Xbox. He watches his Minecraft videos on YouTube and uses unofficial apps to create and share skins and his mods.
He doesn't care who owns the game (Microsoft acquired Mojang Studios in 2014). There is also no brand loyalty to a specific device. His favorites are the ones that are available.
This is what the gaming giants are up against: a generation of young gamers who don't buy into their hype.
Microsoft seems to be starting to respond to this very cautiously.
Last night, Spencer insisted that the latest four games do not represent a fundamental change in the company's gaming strategy.
But he added: “We have a fundamental belief that over the next five to 10 years, exclusive games dedicated to a single hardware will become an increasingly small part of the gaming industry.”
And Xbox isn't the only company supporting this idea. There were similar rumors from Sony as well. At a recent financial results conference, Interim Game Division President Hiroki Totoki said that he wants to bring more PlayStation games to other platforms.
Like Microsoft, he didn't name specific games or specific platforms. Perhaps he meant that the company intends to continue with its current practice of porting PlayStation games to PC months or even years after release.
This comes after years of intense competition between the two companies and the company's expensive acquisitions of successful game studios that produce some of the most popular games in an attempt to lock in the best content to its own customers. A change of heart (Nintendo, on the other hand, still tends to keep games to themselves).
The idea of basically turning any device with a screen into your company's console is pretty simple when you think about it. Why go through the expensive and time-consuming process of building and selling your own hardware when so many people already carry what is essentially a high-performance computer in the form of a cell phone? Or?
Why restrict access to best-selling titles when there is a huge number of users who own alternative devices and are willing to buy them, play them, and pay in-game extras?
Analyst Ampere estimates that a total of about 46.5 million game consoles will be sold in 2023, of which only 7.6 million will be Microsoft's Xbox. That leaves about 39 million gamers who his Xbox exclusive games, such as Bethesda's long-awaited Starfield, couldn't reach.
You begin to see that this is an outdated business model with the same old motivations as money.
“The main reason Microsoft has pursued a more progressive multiplatform strategy with gaming content and services since the early days of the Xbox One cycle is that it hopes to build on the relative success of the Xbox 360 era and steal market share from Sony. “Nintendo, and more recently after the launch of the Switch,'' said Ampere analyst Piers Harding-Rolls.
What's more, Microsoft is busy acquiring successful game studios for big cash grabs at a time when making games is already an expensive business.
In fact, when Sony acquired Activision Blizzard, the giant game maker, for a controversial $68 billion deal, Sony's main objection was to buy Xbox-only games like Call of Duty, which are played by millions of people on PlayStation. This meant that Sony could make a blockbuster hit. Microsoft was forced to promise not to do so for at least 10 years.
There was even speculation that Microsoft might be preparing to completely abandon the Xbox console and exit the hardware market altogether, but Harding-Rawls believes that nothing less drastic is on the horizon. I don't think there is.
“Ampere does not believe that Microsoft will exit the console platform business in the medium term, as that would leave a large hole in gaming-related revenue,” he added.
In fact, Xbox president Sarah Bond teased some new hardware ideas in a podcast released by Microsoft on Thursday.
“What we're really focused on there is delivering the biggest technological leap we've ever seen in a hardware generation,” she said.
Unfortunately, your guess about it at this stage is as accurate as ours, but it's possible it's some kind of handheld device designed to rival the huge success of the Nintendo Switch. Rumors that they have sex are heating up.
Either way, Darren Edwards of gaming news site TheXboxHub sums it up nicely: “It's not a doomsday scenario for Xbox.”
As for the games themselves, Microsoft's recommended gateway is through Games Pass. For £12.99 a month, you get unlimited streaming access to hundreds of titles.
The company has been quiet about its subscriber numbers for some time, but tonight it revealed that number has reached 34 million. He launched in 2017 with the goal of completing the 100m by 2030, but that goal is still six years away and still feels like a long way off.
But it's still good news for those making games included in Games Pass, like UK-based publisher No More Robots.
Director Mike Rose said: “We want as many people as possible to use Game Pass, because that will naturally lead to more people playing our titles. “This is especially useful for multiplayer titles that require higher player counts to maintain performance.”
Needless to say, there are plenty of relieved Xbox owners on social media right now. Many felt the announcement was a reactionary move after days of waiting, and certainly left more questions than answers. But at least the message was more normal than a console bonfire.
One of the X gamers summed up the most popular opinion as follows: “Xbox isn't going away, it's not going to be a third party. Can we all just settle down now?”
Additional reporting by Tom Gerken
