The sales figures for the Xbox for the past two generations have been abysmal. There’s no way around it. Microsoft has consistently struggled to sell consoles since its blunder with the Xbox One. It’s come to a point that it’s no longer including the official numbers of the Xbox Series S/X in its financial reports. Their recent acquisitions of Activision Blizzard and ZeniMax Media should help, but the signs point to a bleaker future. Very few are buying an Xbox Series S/X even Starfield came out last year and became one of the best-selling games of 2023 on any platform. Instead, public opinion on the Xbox hasn’t improved, which probably explains the recent rumblings.
Several insiders have come forward independently with their respective sources claiming that Xbox is releasing its first-party and third-party exclusives to other platforms, namely the PlayStation 5.
We’re no longer talking about the mid-level hits like Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves. The recent rumors suggest nothing is off the table. First-party titles like Halo and Gears of War and newly acquired properties or upcoming games like Starfield and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle are coming to PlayStation 5. This begs the question, if Xbox exclusives are no longer a thing, what’s the point of the Xbox Series S/X?
The discussion surrounding Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard for the better part of the past year was that it could pocket billions in revenue by making Call of Duty, Diablo, Overwatch, and more, exclusive to the Xbox platform. Then, Xbox signed a deal to bring Call of Duty to PlayStation and Nintendo for at least the next ten years, shifting the narrative to, “everything but Call of Duty”.
Now, it appears that this was all for naught.
It’s an open secret that console manufacturers lose money with every console sold but make up for it from the sales of first-party and third-party exclusives and the cut from purchases on their respective digital storefronts.
With the Xbox Series S/X laughably outsold by PlayStation 5 and the exclusives being on a different and arguably better platform like the PC anyway, there’s little incentive to buy Microsoft’s latest gaming consoles. Therefore, it’s bleeding money when it shouldn’t.
Microsoft has been one of the largest video game publishers for a while now after it bought ZeniMax Media. The Activision Blizzard acquisition only pushed it over the top.
Armed with all the money, why shouldn’t Microsoft become a third-party publisher? It’s not as if it’s going out like SEGA, which ran out of money. If anything, Microsoft is literally more flush than ever. It’s the gaming division that’s costing the multi-trillion-dollar corporation more than it’s worth. So, why shouldn’t Microsoft cut its losses and go the way of Electronic Arts and Take-Two Interactive?
Microsoft should know better than to bank on hardware over software to make them money.
Microsoft already knows it lost the console wars to Sony (and by extension, Nintendo). The company has literally no reason to keep fighting a losing battle outside of saving face. It’s better if Xbox fought Sony on a different field by leveraging its wealth of properties and making Xbox synonymous with video games.
True, this signals the end of the form Xbox has taken for four generations but it might also be the start of a new era.
