In fact, the question is quite simple: since 2022, Xbox – as a brand and entity – is nothing more than a subsidiary of the Microsoft Gaming body, founded in 2022 to prepare to welcome Activision Blizzard to the gaming giant. Redmond. Phil Spencer took the helm of this entity by delegating the hardware to Sarah Bond and the games (well, the content, pardon the technocratic neologism) to Matt Booty. All official communications from Xbox were keen to demonstrate the spiritual continuity within the company: certainly, the organization chart is turned upside down, but don't panic, Phil “Philou” Spencer is still at the helm, his little conventional smile and his Hexen t-shirts won't disappear. Yes, but who invested $75.4 billion to obtain Activision Blizzard? Xbox or Microsoft? You already know the answer. And the person holding the checkbook is often the one holding the reins.
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The money is chic ?
Thus, all the echoes emanating from Xbox point to the same conclusion: “If you find the latest decisions inconsistent with the professions of faith of Xbox leaders, it is because these decisions are probably not made by Phil [Spencer]. This whole circus is dictated by Satya Nadella [PDG de Microsoft] and Amy Hood [directrice financière de Microsoft]and it all stems from the Activision takeover.“Before this massive investment, Xbox had the right to dabble in its corner. 8.1 billion to buy ZeniMax? Surprisingly, still passes. But no one coughs up 75 billion without hoping for a major return on investment. It has come time to pruning. A very recent interview with Bloomberg Tech with Sarah Bond offers us this completely blurry yet eloquent graph on the growth of Xbox:
When confinement occurs in 2020, income explodes. Game Pass is infiltrating every home, it's great, we really only have time to waste; then comes the Xbox Series, launch with great fanfare, the whole mess. Meteoric growth. But since then, the bubble has burst, the columns are lowering slightly. The Game Pass seems to have already conquered everything it had to conquer, or almost, each additional centimeter of market becomes harder to obtain, the evolution of the figures does not follow the explosion of the AAA budgets of the figureheads having to supply the 'subscription. So checking all the internal boxes is no longer enough to make a game successful. In 2023, Aaron Greenberg, vice president of Xbox marketing, said that Hi-Fi Rush was an absolute success. Tango Gameworks is closing anyway. Not enough profits. Because he came out day one on Game Pass without much marketing and few people bought it? Very probable. Jim Ryan, who argued before the FTC that releasing his entire catalog day one in a subscription raised big budgetary problems, you have to laugh.
Live, but above all let die
So there you have it, we are in a capitalist economy in a terminal phase and the shareholders have no religion other than holy perpetual growth. Suffering a slight drop in the graphs is almost like signing your death warrant without immediate action. So we prune. We cut studios that are not working on “cash cow” projects. King can sleep soundly thanks to Candy Crush while Tango Gameworks, a multi-awarded studio specializing in single-player experiences without omnipresent microtransactions, is asked to leave the scene. Same sad observation for Arkane Austin who was left to waste away on Redfall, a mediocre project despite his good intentions. Because an editor must also know how to support its developers by providing intelligent feedback, by cutting what doesn't work, by putting a stop to it when the project director goes into trouble. Xbox bears as much responsibility for this failure as Arkane, and mea culpa Phil Spencer's audience changes nothing: today, it's the little hands who are unemployed and the big guy who keeps his job.
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Bigwig who is clearly nothing more than a mouthpiece for Microsoft's discreet oils. The time has come to repay the 75 billion invested. This certainly explains the lack of soul of the brand. This is another recurring topic: how to define Xbox? How, in a few words, can we summarize its editorial strategy, its particularities in the video game landscape, its intentions? Back in the days of the Xbox 360, you knew why you were filling Don Mattrick's purse. The console manufacturer promised you the best console FPS on the market and you had Halo: Reach; we promised you good Western-style RPGs and you could choose between Fable and Oblivion; As for car games, Forza and Project Gotham Racing were serious arguments against Gran Turismo. That's what jumped straight to mind. In a sense, Xbox had perfectly grasped the tastes of the West despite a few calls to Japan, like Blue Dragon, which remained unanswered.
Blindly
PlayStation negotiated the PS4 / Xbox One period much better, and not just from a purely communication point of view. In terms of games, the Japanese manufacturer has created a clear identity. Hollywood blockbusters, visually ambitious, with a recipe that is certainly rather conventional when we strip down the visual trappings of each project, but which works and which speaks to as many people as possible. If you buy a PS4, you know that you will be able to enjoy high-end accessible adventures like God of War (2018) or The Last of Us Part II, games that are ultimately mainstream (by the clarity of their proposition). It's a bit like the original proposition of Marvel films before the implosion: an entertaining recipe, nicely presented, with a close-knit community. And above all, dynamic, coherent, borderline aggressive marketing, which emphasizes the high production value of each episode. Marvel's Spider-Man has been carefully pampered to give him the most beautiful face possible. The players responded.
Meanwhile, the image delay accumulated by Xbox during the Xbox One generation only got worse at the turn of the 2020s, with a series of blunders ultimately confusing the brand image. Halo Infinite? Directly the laughing stock of the web because of the first images which were frankly technically late (after all the failure over the almighty teraflops of the Xbox Series, the height of it). Senua's Saga: Hellblade II? Missing after a very impressive trailer, so much so that the general public seems frankly unaware that it comes out on May 21. Starfield? The old Bethesda recipe and its bug patty. Compare the figureheads. Between the ultra-refined rehash (The Last of Us Part I) and the visually more complicated rehash (Starfield), which argument is the most compelling? I'm not talking about pure quality. I ask you to put yourself in the place of an occasional player, who does not necessarily have a strong opinion or a chip in the console war, and who is now wondering which bike to buy. As great as Pentiment is, can we ask it to sell console stocks to a general public simply asking for accessible leisure activities, and who are inevitably sensitive to the glitter of the PlayStation catalog?
And since the general public is much less sophisticated than us, journalists or readers of Gamekult, the Game Pass proposition is not that attractive; how many streaming platforms are already considered cumbersome because they have “too little content” when it is just hidden under a thick layer of algorithms, “current series” and pre-acquired blinders? 400 games in one package Overall, it's cute, but it doesn't mean anything to someone who doesn't know anything about it. It's like giving me the wine list in a Michelin-starred restaurant. The truth is that I won't recognize any names, there are three pages that my blue eyes can't decipher, and I'll probably order the cheapest or most recognizable one. In other words, everyone sees that Spiderman is at Sony, not at Xbox, so he makes his choice accordingly. By leaving its great franchises (Halo, Gears of War…) getting bogged down in average episodes with insufficient means of communication, Xbox has slowly retreated in people's minds. Now, we can see some stupid posters with a green banner highlighting Overwatch 2 at Gare de l'Est. Without salt or pepper. If I wasn't from the industry, I honestly wouldn't understand anything about it. The brand can no longer behave on conquered territory, 2008 is over: we must resume our attitude ofoutsideras in 2001-2002, when the first Xbox had to build everything against the behemoths PlayStation and Nintendo.
The end of an era ?
No one in their right mind wants Xbox to disappear as a manufacturer. Its presence on the market is now essential to temper PlayStation's desires; leaving the entire monopoly on home consoles to a single entity would be, as with every monopoly, a disaster. I therefore hope that Microsoft will move your ass. That the multinational stop wanting to solve its problems with big checks, by buying up everything that passes, to send the studios to the mine on lousy projects (Perfect Dark) and/or close them as soon as they cannot manage to sell thirty million cakes – while they are in self-competition with the Game Pass. That it rediscovers a true editorial philosophy, quite simply. But as long as Microsoft's relentless financiers keep their hand firmly on Phil Spencer's shoulder to maximize profits, it's a safe bet that gamers will continue to suffer. When we find ourselves wondering, in 2024, if it is time to launch Call of Duty on Game Pass, it is really the symptom of an agonizing lack of vision which will inevitably hurt a lot in an industry where projects Major projects require at least three years of development.
Microsoft Gaming will prosper, unless it simultaneously obliterates Blizzard and Activision, which seems very complicated. But the Xbox brand appears to be in serious peril, balancing on a tightrope between unrealistic growth demands and public image concerns. The next two years are likely to be decisive. Call me an alarmist if you want. But if Microsoft coldly executed Tango Gameworks despite its successes, do you think the firm would have that much remorse to completely remodel, or even eliminate Xbox to reduce costs if it would help its Excel spreadsheets? Especially when the goose that lays the golden eggs Activision Blizzard is the real engine of growth gaming current ?
More desires for growth which only narrow the field of possibilities…