Microsoft Confirms Plans To Release Xbox First Party Games “Across All Platforms”, Including PlayStation

Looks like Microsoft is now entirely focusing on selling games rather than selling Xbox. I read somewhere that eventually they'll bring the Game Pass to Play Station and Nintendo. It's no surprise if they do so because last year they earned more money on Game Pass than selling hardware.

The only reason anyone wants to sell consoles is to get you locked in that ecosystem and sell you games. They don't make a profit on the hardware, Xbox game pass is their headstart into purely game sales, well a subscription and cloud service that everyone is trying to jump on right now.
- When they lock you into their hardware they get commission on third party game sales as well, or don’t have to pay other people commission on their first party game sales. Traditionally this is how console manufacturers made the bulk of their money but now Microsoft has game pass so they want to get it in front of as many people as possible I guess.
Admittedly, that's helped by them doing terribly at selling hardware.

But also, screw gamepass and the subscription model overall. If we're gonna crap on Ubisoft for their recent foot-in-mouth episode let's be consistent and call all of it out. I'm cool with this as long as I can keep buying these in boxes.
- I honestly don’t hate game pass, it’s great for trying games id never even consider buying and if I really like the game and it’s off of game pass I would purchase it. Or if you have a group of friends that like to hop between co-op games you can do that too.
  
  Like the Yakuza game series they have all of them currently on game pass, but the new one won’t be and I’ll definitely be buying the game.
  
  But if it gets to the point where Ubisoft goes and every studio starts making their own, I don’t think that will work if they don’t have the game catalogue to support it, that would mean Ubisoft could just start churning out horrible games to build their stupid catalogue.
- They’re horrible at making games too. Their biggest games have been IP conceived and developed externally and once they took them over they’ve run them into the ground of mediocrity. In over twenty years I don’t think any developer or franchise has benefited from Microsoft owning them.
- But also, screw gamepass and the subscription model overall.
  
  If GamePass meant "you just get everything", I see a case for that but GamePass isn't that. It's "Here are a few Microsoft 1st party games scoring 7/10 other games cycle in and out like Netflix and you get no DLC so when you buy DLC and the game cycles out, you're out of luck"
I wonder if Sony would allow gamepass in their ecosystem. That said, if this is true then we are likely to see Microsoft leave the console hardware market.
- No fucking chance Sony's going to let a rival set up shop on their own consoles. Not even a possibility. Look at how much Apple and Google fought with Epic over keeping them off their phones. And that's just over a secondary app store on a device that can do a million different things that the parent companies can still find ways to monetize. You're talking about a competitor selling a subscription to bypass PlayStation's only source of sales. Sony will fight that with everything they've got and no cut of the subscription fees will ever be enough to change their minds.
- If Microsoft gives them a cut maybe.
Microsoft has been betting on content delivery for a while now. They don't care how you play their games, they just want you playing them.
- They don't care how you play their games, they just want you ~~playing~~ paying them.
  
  FTFY
They'd love to have GamePass on Switch and PS5 already, Nintendo and Sony are the roadblock because they don't want to lose the share of cash and hours of playtime on their own platforms.
- Then there comes the EU rules. I think if Sony or Nintendo try to block the Game Pass on their platforms. MS will seek the EU's help.
Hardware is a race to the bottom, and MS is ultimately a software company first.
- Especially since in the near future streaming games will be a thing. Amazon is already working on it.
Looks like Microsoft is now entirely focusing on selling games rather than selling Xbox.

If that were true, they would have discontinued Xbox already. You are falling for their lie that they aren't trying to lock people into a closed ecosystem.

I do wonder if that means we won't see another Xbox hardware generation.

This reminds me a lot of what Sega did after the Dreamcast.

Xbox is a gamepass company now, not a hardware company. They'd much prefer you just BYOD and Xbox just handles the streaming.
If this is more than just PR for regulators, then they'll probably exit the console market.

Would be massively surprised if this means anything else other than CoD which they got regulators worried about a little bit. they just want to reduce the eyeballs.

Yeah, don't think we're seeing a PS5 release of starfield any time soon.

So, at bare minimum COD will stay multiconsole. That's not surprising.

In order of least to most surprising to go multiconsole:

COD
Diablo
Elder Scrolls
Fallout
Starfield
Fable
Halo

Definitely won't be all of them. Probably just a small set that are not huge money makers. They already publish some titles as third party, like Minecraft, Ori, and Lucky's Tale.

Guessing we just get ports of, like, Hi-Fi Rush and Psychonauts, and continued support of some Activision titles that are 3rd party like Diablo 4, Spyro, Crash, and a token Call of Duty game.

I’m sure this is certainly meant for ABK games.

Aside all other legitimate concerns mine is mostly that they'll use the MS store on PC...

Would be missing out on too much revenue, they all come back to Steam every time they try their own stores (which MS did already).
They tried this and found it didn't work.
They tried for like a decade before finally giving up. Microsoft has learned a lot of lessons while trying to work on their gaming arm, and some of them have actually stuck. I would expect titles to be sold on Steam until Phil Spencer retires.

Earlier, multiple sources had indicated that Xbox is looking to foray into third party development, with ports of several first party titles rumored to arrive on PS5 and Nintendo Switch 2

So I guess they know more about the next Switch console than the rest of us.

They would have to if they plan to make anything for its launch. Least of which would be the specifications of the hardware.

I would love to play some Gears of War on my PlayStation, but only if you could buy the physical game and not play through a subscription service like GamePass.

I am very pessimistic about that ever happening but i would love to be wrong. I dont think they have much incentive to make all those physical copies unfortunately
- It would still be money into their account even if a subscription model might be better for them. But since, I wouldn’t be subscribing to anything related to Microsoft they would gain less money from me that way..

I'm not getting my hopes up for the upcoming Fable installment on PS, but I'm getting my hopes up for the upcoming Fable installment on PS.

Maybe they're learning from Sony. That barely anyone runs out to get another console for exclusives, way more people will wait or just not play the game. They're mostly just leaving money on the table

I think they just finally learned XBOX isnt the big seller this generation, Playstation is the market leader for at least 2 generations because of their amazing first party games. Microsoft hasn’t had as good of a lineup for exclusive games, especially since they are already available on PC. See Halo Infinite and Starfield. There’s too many playstation users not to release games on that platform.
- It feels like despite all that, Microsoft has had a lot more influence on the gaming industry the last 5 years than Sony because of their Game Pass push. Sony is fine doing what they've been doing, which is to put out like 3 great games a year.
  
  Microsoft has struggled with great first-party games, but their services are far more interesting.
- Playstation is the market leader for at least 2 generations because of their amazing first party games
  
  of the two, the switch is like currently the 3rd top selling console of all time, only behind the DS and PS2 with 130m+ sold.