"Phil Spencer on what the hell is happening in the games industry"

[kane_magus]

"And why exclusives have become a risky business"

Simply another bunch of reasons why the modern AAA video game industry needs to crash, burn, and die.

As far as exclusives are concerned, though, if Microsoft and the X-bone family of consoles were the leaders of the modern video game industry (which they most assuredly are not), would we really be hearing Phil Spencer whining about "the perils of exclusivity and walled-garden consoles" or whatever the fuck? I think not. He just wants Sony (and probably Nintendo, but fat chance of that) exclusives on his console. In the alternate universe where the X-bone consoles were dominant, it would be Sony begging Microsoft for access to their exclusives, rather than the other way around like it is here.

Granted, I fully agree with him that exclusives are fucking bullshit. It's just not for the same reasons he believes it.

Comments

[owsf2000]

Yeah, Phil's just not voicing the entire thing he means there. Exclusives -ON THE XBOX- have become a risky business. Which is probably why you typically see exclusives on the playstation line instead these days. Much larger user base and the like.

I think Sony is still outselling Microsoft 2-to-1 these days for consoles? Ever since the start of the Xbone when Microsoft had that disastrous release announcement that they ended up having to completely backtrack on after losing half their preorders over it? Looks like the people that ditched Xbox (like me, although I never was part of those preorders. I've never preordered a console ever.) never went back.[1]

[1] That being said I do plan on firing up the 360 at some point this year for the first time in over a decade.[2]

[2] I can footnote too.

[kane_magus]

Yeah, why would anyone (i.e. third party devs) in their right minds want to get into an exclusivity contract with Microsoft for the X-box series XSSSXXSXSXwhatever, when they'd make a lot more money via Sony and on PC, or even just by being exclusive to Sony.

And for the games made internally by Microsoft (and Microsoft-owned) dev teams/studios being exclusive to X-bone consoles, those are also risky for Microsoft themselves, because, quite frankly, they're losing money because nobody is buying them, because relatively nobody is buying the consoles they're played on (and even if someone did buy the console, that's not a guarantee they'd also buy those particular games). As such, it would be better even for Microsoft itself not to make their own games exclusive to their own consoles, at least as far as the games themselves go. And, you know, it's also not making much of an impact on X-bork console sales either.

I'll just say this, as much as I generally like(d) stuff like Fallout and The Elder Scrolls (made by Bethesda, now sadly owned by MS) or stuff from Obsidian or inXile (both sadly owned by MS now) or Double Fine or Ninja Theory or Rare or Mojang or Blizzard (though, of course, those last two went on my shitlist before they were bought by MS, so they're mostly moot points now) or whatever, I sure as shit won't be buying a X-bone series whatever-the-fuck for games from any of those, if they were exclusive to it.

Really, at this point, Microsoft probably would be best off pulling a Sega and getting out of the console business entirely and just selling their games for other platforms altogether. That's been the case for years now, pretty much ever since the end of the 360 era.

(As for the 360, I kind of wish I still had mine, along with my copy of Fable II, since Fable II is not available on any other platform right now, aside maybe from some jank-ass 360 emulator or something. [Or Gamepass or whatever, I guess, but to hell with that subscription dogshit.] Same for Fable III as well, I guess, but then Fable III was just kind of a poor-man's Fable II to start with. But... that's pretty much the only reason I can think of that I'd maybe still want to own a Microsoft console at this point in time. That said, I'd really rather Microsoft [who bought and subsequently killed Lionhead, the makers of the Fable games] would just fucking release Fable II [and re-release Fable III] on PC already, rather than keep continually remaking/rereleasing the first Fable game over and over. Until and unless that happens, I will continue to have little to no interest in any Fable 4 thing Microsoft may try to eventually shit out [especially if it's exclusive to a fucking X-bluh console, to circle it back around to being on topic].)