lost pages

Where to begin?

Microsoft has been in a rather contentious state with its gaming Division Xbox and I would say it has been in somewhat of a rut for many years. The gaming audience and the gaming industry at large are feeling the effects of a trillionaire cooperation maximising profit and quarterly earnings and laying off significant amounts of employees from its gaming division. The Layoffs itself being made across different studios and Xbox’s publishing operations.

And when it rains, it pours… There seems to be constant press and not the good kind when it comes to Xbox and what the future holds. Microsoft’s subscription service Game Pass, recently had a 50% price increase, which leaves much to be desired and is especially a hard pill to swallow when you consider the cost of living crisis with people’s wages barely keeping up with the rise of inflation. Video game prices have also swung high being as high as 80 dollars, now leaving many consumers wondering how they can sustain such an expensive hobby.

Now Microsoft is not unique in raising the price of its subscription service Game Pass, or raising the price of its select first party games or even increasing the price of its current console line-up in the Xbox Series S and X respectively.

But what creates further hurt and ruins the image of Xbox, is that Microsoft cannot seem to figure out what it wants to do moving forward with the Xbox ‘brand’. Now more than ever, does Xbox seem like a sterile and cooperate husk of its former self with a desire to simply maximise profits with instant returns and fail to properly manage its game studios and work on delivering great games nurturing the vast talent under Microsoft’s portfolio. Now it is not like Xbox does not have any good games under its belt, but the growing apathy with Xbox comes from all the studio closures, layoffs, and cancellations that ultimately hurt not only Xbox, but the gaming industry at large.

Microsoft have openly admitted how they lost the console war, but what is worse is that Microsoft have made bad decision after bad decision, which makes you question why even invest into the Xbox ecosystem when you can simply decide to get a PlayStation or save up money to invest in a good gaming PC when Xbox Games are now largely multi-platform. What I am trying to gage is that a traditional ‘console’, seems to be a dying breed and having no competition with Sony’s PlayStation is not a future I am too fond of.

Competition can be a good thing for the consumer and even if Xbox have promised to have a next gen console. I fear the damage is irreparable when it comes to the Xbox brand and with Sarah Bond (President of Xbox) calling the next Xbox “very premium, high-end next-gen console experience”.

It just makes me predict, that Microsoft will sooner or later exit the ‘console’ space similar to Sega and with its recent marketing in trying to have nearly every conceivable device as an ‘Xbox’ and Microsoft having something like the Rog Ally X indicating to me that Microsoft will allow third party companies to make licenced ‘Xbox’ branded hardware systems being largely a PC (and having to use Game Pass, unable to access Xbox Console Library). It seems clear to me that Microsoft are not impressed with the Gaming Division of Xbox and are imposing unrealistic profit margins, which is said to be a target of 30 percent profit margins for Xbox.

So then the question becomes: is Xbox dead? I would say Xbox as a dedicated ‘console’ seems more and more like a bygone era, with Microsoft now placing Xbox Division as a multi-platform money making machine.

My hope right now is that Microsoft can properly invest and manage its current gaming studios and focus on making great games first and foremost with realistic and grounded expectations. Gaming is very much a luxury, but it is also the medium of so many dynamic and rich games to play from. Allow for the scaling of development to foster multiple unique projects and not every new game has to be a massive Triple A project with enormous budgets. Make use of the diverse catalogue of Studios Microsoft has bought and allow the developers to make something they are equipped to make. I am under no illusion that making Games is a business, but Microsoft will need to understand that laying off a huge chunk of your workforce is not necessarily going to breed long term success, despite whatever short term gains it may generate.