I’m Glad I Sold My Xbox
The last two generations of Xbox have been a whimper, and I'm finally ready to let it go.
www.thegamer.com
- Xbox has struggled to keep up with Nintendo and Sony when it comes to system-selling exclusives.
- Its one ace in the hole, Game Pass, is starting to fall apart as prices skyrocket and the day one promise inevitably fell apart.
- With talent tossed aside and Microsoft throwing money at the problem instead of addressing the root cause, Xbox feels like it's on its last legs.
Last week, I finally bit the bullet and pawned my Xbox Series X. I had it for a couple of years, but it became nothing more than a glorified, expensive Blu-ray player. I wouldn’t normally bother announcing this to the world, but after months of writing news headlines that are variations of ‘Microsoft craps the bed’, this growing apathy to Xbox is worth discussing.
Let’s look back to the very start of the year. After Microsoft’s record-breaking acquisition of Activision Blizzard King, it laid off 1,900 employees. Immediately, the cracks and unsustainability of its strategy were showing.
Xbox One was often ridiculed for its lack of games while Sony released hit after hit with The Last of Us, Uncharted, Horizon Zero Dawn, Bloodborne, Spider-Man, God of War, and so many more. Microsoft tried to gain a leg up in two ways, Game Pass and enormous buyouts, hoping to turn other studios’ work into its own first-party exclusives.
While an affordable library that makes gaming a less expensive hobby is a promising idea, this method is backfiring… badly. Game Pass has always promised day one releases, something Sony would not match with the revamped PS Plus for good reason. As the service continues to prove unfeasible, even negatively impacting sales, this promise turns those expensive first-party exclusives into fodder for a subscription that Microsoft is already throwing billions of dollars at.
In today’s world, games cost a lot to make. Spider-Man 2 ran up a bill of $315 million. But with Game Pass taking away sales, those expensive games are suddenly making a lot less money. Ultimately, this makes an ordinary dud a catastrophic failure. Arkane Austin—a studio with incredible prestige for developing modern classics like Dishonored and Prey—was shut down after just one bad game, despite Microsoft spending $7.5 billion on Bethesda in the first place.
The day one promise is another anchor on developers in a struggling industry already weighed down by countless influences, and Game Pass itself has warped the way so many players view games. It has exacerbated the ‘time equals quality’ debate, turned gaming into disposable fast food, and stripped away ownership, something that is worsening as we move into an all-digital future. Even Microsoft is reckoning with what it has created.
Starting in September, Game Pass will introduce a new ‘Standard’ tier for $14.99 per month, which won’t include day one releases. You’ll have to fork out $20 a month for the ‘Ultimate’ tier if you want to keep that perk. It’s an incredibly confusing system (there’s a ‘Core’ and ‘Standard’ version now) that is far less affordable than it once was, but it makes sense.
Game Pass costs a lot to run. Microsoft has to make up for lost third-party sales with big payouts to keep developers invested to continue boosting Game Pass sales that have now started to stagnate. And it’s losing sales on its own games from launching them on Game Pass too. Short of gutting the entire service, the only way to put the toothpaste back in the bottle is to obfuscate it and slowly bury the day one promise.
Buyouts inevitably lead to layoffs, Game Pass is an unsustainable vacuum, and then we have the exclusives themselves. After the disastrous Xbox One generation, the Series X/S stepped onto the scene, and so far, there’s very little to write home about. Halo Infinite, while a good shooter, wasn’t enough in today’s live-service world. Redfall, Hellblade 2, and Starfield—the heavy hitters Microsoft was counting on to bounce back—varied from awful to lukewarm and were swept aside as quickly as they came.
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