Talking Point: What's Your Immediate Reaction To Today's Xbox Announcements?

Pretty much as expected. I think it is great news for xbox.

This was a nothingburger that wouldn't really garner much interest if it wasn't for the gross overreaction to false rumors last week.

It doesn't really change much. A few smaller games and games that will probably benefit from more players is hardly a big deal. It seems that gamers have been massively overreacting this past week.

I'm skeptical about what their plan really is...

One month and a half away from only one ActiBlizz game on Game Pass is nuts, I don’t even care about the Diablo franchise. I want to know about BC games that could be coming, and I have no rush to play CoD, but where’s Crash, Tony Hawk and Spyro

No big deal. Some older games go multiplatform. Bigger games like Starfield and Indiana Jones stay exclusive. All first party games still going to GamePass Day One.

This is not the “death of Xbox” as some have said.

About what I expected. They are leveraging their publishing reach a little and looking to how to keep doing that. I honestly like that they seem concerned about giving players a good experience no matter where they are playing. The next gen talk was the only thing that felt like it was a reach. The rest was sound, straightforward business roadmap.

I just heard a lot of nothing, really. They should've been more transparent with what games will go to other platforms and what will they really do with the current xbox.

It feels natural to do what they do. They need to make money and more people get to play their games. SOT is a prime example that would really benefit from more players.

I hope blade isn’t one of the four

This really could've been a tweet or a blog post tbh. They really didn't say much and nothing has really changed in my view. Seems a lot of people lost their minds for no reason at all

They did not really say much new at all but I think they did a good job of saying nothing. I think this will do a lot to quell the panic.

So this wasn't the xbox apocalypse at all?
Beggers belief they allowed the social media meltdown to last as long as it did though. Who knows how many consoles were sold/traded needlessly in the past few weeks while Xbox just sat on their hands?

I barely managed to stay awake through the podcast.

The show was whole lot PR speak. All blah blah blah blah blah Diablo 4. Then more blah blah blah blah blah. Did say more hardware coming this year. So probably just slim version of X or Series Pro X. Which is just waste of research and resources.

I believe this is just the beginning. Even if they have internal plans to bring other titles they aren't going to announce it all at once. It's a drip feed and they gave constant hints that the future is without exclusivity. It'll be interesting to see in the next 12 months how future titles end up.

This just proves that gaming journalists are a**holes when it comes to Xbox, they made up all those rumors just to make it seem as the platform was getting phased out when it’s just porting 4 games to other platforms.

However, Phil never said they’re going to stop at 4 games and I do fear that every time a game gets announced the question will inevitably come up if it’s going to arrive on PlayStation/Nintendo.

I think by taking over a week to respond they have done themselves more harm than they needed to.

The rumours will not stop. Everyone knows this is the testing of the waters.

Their plans have obviously been scaled back due to the community backlash.

MS need better marketing/PR because it could all have been nipped in the bud a long time ago.

Over a week of the internet melting down about some big Xbox announcement and predictions of the death of Xbox.

The actual presentation:
"What we really want to drive home is for all the invested parties, including the customers, and the creators, and the businesses, and the customers, and the players, and the people who send us money, and the customers, and also the creators, and especially the customers, but also the players, but really the customers, Xbox, to us, is a platform. And there's also other platforms. And it's really important that when you invest in playing games, which are on at least one platform, but also sometimes more platforms, and some of our games are also on other platforms, in fact we have a lot of games on a lot of other platforms, but really the heart of Xbox is that there's one or more platforms and we believe it benefits everyone to be able to play a lot of different games on those platforms. And hardware is a part of that. And we definitely have hardware you can play those games on. And also on other hardware, including some other platforms. But we think the most important thing is that players, and customers, are there, and we want more of those. Especially customers. With money. So we want to sell more games to more people. Especially where there are customers. And also Game Pass. Game Pass has a lot of players. And a lot of customers. Customers with money. That play Game Pass. Which is only on Xbox. And Xbox, to us, is a platform. Where there are players. And customers. With money. Who play things. And there's other platforms. And it's similar there."

I hear comittment to the platform and hardware, which is great.
I hear day one on gp, which is great.
I hear just 4 titles agreed, which seems ok.
Then I hear them explain why they are now cross platform for the entire rest of the presentation. Theres clearly many more coming in my opinion I just wished they spelt it out in black and white.

It was largely what I was expecting. I am not sure why this couldn't have been delivered earlier instead of letting the rumours do damage.

We have a solid idea of what three of these are (HiFi, SoT, Pen) but what is the fourth the other "community-driven" game? Halo multiplayer?

I wasn't happy they talked about respecting our libraries and game preservation but didn't actually offer anything new there (E.g. still no accessing non-GP titles via the cloud, not being able to access our 360 games on PCetc)

largest technical leap ever between generations for the new xbox has me VERY excited|! that's a VERY bold claim...

Exactly what I expected. A few games (4) to immediately go multiplatform, with obviously more and more to come afterwards. This is the beginning of the end, it's unfortunate Xbox didn't grow more this generation and is actually somehow selling even less than Xbox One. Now we enter this sad phase. This is what defeat looks like.

The only positive I got at all from this was that their next generation hardware will be the biggest leap ever between generations, we'll see.

Pentimento, Grounded, SoT, and Hi-Fi Rush. Older games and small games.

@IOI This kind of blew up after Jez made some slippery slope assumptions. He is very far from an ***** when it comes to Xbox.

Phil should just have come out with this, when all hell broke loose on the internet.

Unfortunately, it was as expected. They plan to give away some exclusives and say they want to grow Xbox. What they did not tell us is how, which leads us right into a vicious circle.

@Kaloudz
Never been so glad to wrong, well done buddy.

@Jenkinss

"The only positive I got at all from this was that their next generation hardware will be the biggest leap ever between generations, we'll see."

I'd settle for not having to pick between FPS and Graphic modes anymore.

@Dimey I really believe it will be the same thing as Xbox One to Xbox One Pro X or whatever that was. Which honestly was nothing but some faster load times but was touted as...the most powerful Xbox ever! I bought it. Waste of money.

Yawn

I did get the feeling a lot of this was about future Activision titles, getting people used to the idea not everything coming out of Xbox going forward is going to be exclusive, stuff like CoD, Overwatch, Diablo are going to keep being Multi-plat.

I’m personally enjoying all the sour grapes over on push square. Now they aren’t getting the Xbox tentpole franchise they are like “well we never wanted your games anyway” after spending the last 10 days talking about how great it will be to have them on PlayStation and seem sad that Xbox isn’t dead. I don’t get their mentality at all

HiFi Rush, Pentiment, Sea of Thieves, Grounded are the likely suspects from reading around.

Phil says they will monitor how these guinea pig games do and assess how they help the business grow to inform their strategy going forwards.

My only worry is if these games do too well then Xbox might be tempted to start porting the bigger name franchises over and that’s when the trouble will begin. Only time will tell, but at least Xbox is safe for now.

Why did they make us wait so long and let the rumours spiral out of control? That part still doesn’t make sense to me.

@IOI They could have been forced to pull the brakes on a few of their plans because of this backlash. It doesn’t necessarily mean everyone was wrong if they waited a week, discussed behind closed doors and changed their plans.

@themightyant I think key point is is the bit where Phil said "for the titles to continue developing and follow ups the business side of it has to work" (paraphrasing a bit). I think as many have said before, AAA game development where studios of 500 people take 4-7 years to make a game is just ... too expensive. Something has to give. Even Sony CEO recently said they feel the need to find growth elsewhere. PS5/PC day and date releases will be a thing some day I am sure.
@Cakefish My feeling is it wasn't just 4 games, the original pitch was for many games, but the ones that are further back are not mentioned for now.

@IOI He also covered his bases by saying "Don't take this as a sign" and "Indiana Jones and Starfield aren't coming to PS5" etc. It is just a long game of wait and see. I think as long as they don't port the old-school essential Xbox IP such as gears and Halo, they can get away with it.

@GeminiReign It was a very damaging week for Xbox PR. Waiting so long to counter the rumours still doesn’t make sense to me when a simple tweet would’ve stopped those rumours before they gained too much momentum.

Nothing unexpected except Diablo IV on game pass in early March and hardware news later this year.

I thought it was good. Phil waffled at the start but Bond was pretty aggressive in her points - in a good way.
Can check my thoughts as well if you like !
https://mattjarviswriting.wixsite.com/mjjmedia/post/xbox-business-update-february-15th-2024

4 games for now, and seems to be the ones that most "leakers" were expecting. But clearly this opens the door. Any future first party games that get announced, unless they flat out say this is a permanent exclusive, the rumours will be swirling constantly.

Exactly what I and the rest of the sensible minds have been saying for weeks... and Xbox has been doing during the last decade. They will actually grow more on mobile and Cloud than on other consoles. Console user base is limited, as I always say, but it's a profitable business, so there will be an Xbox as long as there is a console market. You can't expect one of the biggest publishers in the world to publish on one console only.

However, the most exciting part for the consoles nerds is something that I (and others) also anticipated, the next Xbox console will be a beast like Series X, "The largest leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation."

Sorry but those that still have something to say like dead, doom, bs, etc., something artificially negative about Xbox and the vision that Microsoft has shared with us today, simply and really dislike Xbox as a brand and as competitor of the brand of their choice, so there's nothing the rest of us can do, so maybe it's time to move on, sell your Xbox like you say, your digital library lost as you fear because you want to throw it away and buy a red or blue console from a more reliable company or the new LG Cloud Gaming fridge.

@GeminiReign

You, along with every other Xbox owner, got mugged off buy this company for a whole week

Genuinely interested how was I, an Xbox owner mugged off for a whole week. Seriously I need to understand the mindset of someone who actually comes up with these sorts of claims. It's a bloody games console, what am I missing here?? 😕🤦‍♂️

A huge nothing burger as others have said. The new console can be 8K/240 capable and it won’t matter if they sleepwalk through the launch period with the games, as they did with Series consoles. Series X is a great console, just needs more quality games. I’m cautiosly optimistic about Xbox’s future (Game Pass and cloud stay) but fully prepared to be disappointed again when it comes to games.

So there testing the waters with 4 games , if they sell you can guarantee it'll be some of the big hitters next up.

@Banjo- there still bringing four of there games to ps , don't even know what they are yet , if they sell they will bring more , pretty much guaranteed.

@NEStalgia nailed it.

@Kaloudz you have stayed true as always and let the waves crash hard alongside the ship and yet let the storm pass without adding more fuel to it. Much like i did. I stayed nearly silent the whole week cause it all seemed like odd timing and just some much stretched out rumors to keep the clicks and ad money a float. Since many others on here won’t come back and apologize to you for their remarks to you that said you were to optimistic. I will apologize to you for them. Someone has to not be a downer every time leakers and YouTubers spread waves of misinformation about a 3 trillion dollar company hell bent on making sure they secure their footing in a multi billion dollar industry that they have invested in to be more relevant in, only to give every game to Sony. Sorry some of all this never made financial sense to me.

34 million GamePass paying customers is something they are gonna protect, and grow, and some titles that will grow even more will come to other platforms because their developers want them to and we've had them for over a year before they do... Xbox isnt going anywhere, they are expanding and taking over the gaming space. Im on board.

So games that make sense to go over eventually and fair titles at that that makes sense for audience appeal, preservation/community talks I didn't pay attention to.

Console will be there for console users that still enjoy having a console and PC/mobile/Cloud is the way to go. No surprises there. Games will be ported for more reach, other business mediums to jump to if they see the need to expand there.

I mean Windows/Office always were put to many things, why wouldn't they Xbox services and they have. Like that wasn't hard to tell.

Nothing much for me to care about as a back compat/old Xbox One games/blu-ray tv show disk user mostly at this point.

Candy Crush as bloatware still. Maybe more mobile focus or cloud focus for mobile but like they need to have more mobile games unless they want King to do so or keep at what they already are doing best.

TV or Books? That won't happen. Halo TV show sure, other IPs nope probably not. Can they push reach of audience sure they have. Is that all they need to do gaming wise then other mediums wise maybe.

Mostly nothing of the sort other than they are just working out porting, Dialbo on Gamepass and whatever things. Much on the management side maybe, maybe not.

A bunch of whatever claims of big/best games that I just ignored because why wouldn't I. They make games, they put them to other platforms, do they have impact to get people to buy a console no, use their services yes, maybe, no.

Gamepass has the odd third parties do well for them and that's fine. Subs are doing well.

What other money sources do they consider who knows.

It answered questions without answering all of them. Not that I have any, but a lot of people will begin asking themselves why they should invest in an ecosystem with fewer exclusives than its competitors.

It was clear the messaging took a week because there was probably a lot of in-fighting between MS leadership and the Xbox team.
The Xbox team managed to convince MS leadership that having a console identity is important. At least in the short term, this isn’t over by a long shot.

I was wondering if those that smashed up their consoles are trying to put them back together right now 🤣 Shame!
I liked the podcast... looking forward to playing Diablo!

@Seioni It won't be. Criteria for those four games were already out, and at least for pne year.

I was exiting the PS5 vs Xbox wars anyway. Steamdeck and Switch are more than enough gaming for me. But having listened the whole podcast felt like damage control and spin. Nerves were clearly on display, so this clearly wasn't Plan A as Phil alluded to. The whole Acti-Blizz joining GamePass announcement was pretty anti-climactic as Diablo is the only franchise actually ready to jump in. Still nothing on Starcraft or Warcraft. The 4 'mystery' games coming to other consoles meant almost nothing to me. Seems like a whole lot of drama for what is a very clear evolution of the gaming future. Sony confirmed as much on Tuesday. Nintendo still seems to be the only one with a clue on how to run a complete closed garden style game business. The modern culture of several hundred million per AAA title is so out of control. It's absurd.

My immediate reaction is all the panic I saw recently was a nothing burger created by clowns who think they're 'insiders.' Utterly ridiculous. It's clear MS has had to make some decisions and shift course for business purposes but it really doesn't change how I'm going to interact with the brand. It sounds like Xbox consoles will still be a thing, so that's cool with me, I'll keep buying them. I just hope the next one is backwards compatible and still has a disc drive, whether it's built in or I have to buy is separately and add it myself, because I have a huge collection of Xbox games I want to keep carrying over.

@themightyant I still think that they were having conversations about going different ways, likely where the leaks came from. Not sure if the other side was winning and that's why things got leaked or if someone saw a slide or overhead them talking about pros and cons of one of the more nuclear options and thought it was a real thing? Companies look at multiple scenarios always, it's just business. End of the day it's not the Apocalypse and hopefully people can buy their Xboxes back that they sold...

I figured there was a lot of overreaction to these rumored leaks. With that being said I'm glad they confirmed they are working on future hardware and continue to focus on backwards compatibility. The Series S is actually my first x box but I was able to build a decent digital library with xbox1 and 360 games. So I look forward to using that with the next gen.

I also do think there may have been some internal discussions between Microsoft and xbox about the direction they want to go and that's why they needed a couple weeks to fully respond.

@Kaloudz man i have been better, but I’m back now. Yeah i just thought it was all blown way out of proportion. Xbox is finally starting to get into the plans they have laid out a few years ago.They aren’t going to just up and leave, or give it all to PS. I just hope the rumors slow down now and let the games do the talking.

I’ll be really happy and hopefully for pentiment to gain a greater audience. It might mean a sequel, or other games like that, or more games with low budgets and high creativity.

Well number 1 I think Xbox should no longer support IGN for all the rumors and lies and hate they pushed on all their channels and media. IGN showed their true colors about how they feel about Microsoft and Xbox. Same goes for Gameranx. I don't think Phil Spencer or anyone at Xbox should support IGN. As for everything they said. I thought it was great. I love my Xbox...and so glad I've been there since day 1....I had Xbox since it first came out and all my friends love it. Great community.