Something is brewing behind the scenes in the gaming industry. Voices that were rare and quiet last year and barely went beyond rumor status are currently becoming louder and even key players in the industry are occasionally joining in with the same thing Chris Dringhead of the online business magazine Gamesindustry.biz. The question is: Is it still worth developing games for Microsoft's Xbox Series X and S consoles in the long term?
The discussion began in 2023, when the severe delivery bottlenecks were finally resolved and console sales increased again. While Sony was able to score points with the PS5 with an increase in sales of 143 to 376 percent depending on the region – which sounds more spectacular than it is with almost zero availability – and even Nintendo was still able to celebrate good sales success with the aging Switch, Microsoft seemed to be keeping up the Xbox Series X|S falls by the wayside. Especially on the global market outside the USA and especially in Europe, sales fell between 26 and 52 percent, depending on the country, although Xbox was always doing better in the UK than in continental Europe. The relationship between Sony and Xbox in Central Europe has long been decided in favor of the Japanese, but the current ratio of 80 to 20 percent speaks volumes, especially since Xbox was never able to build up a sufficiently large base.
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In one Podcast from Gamesindustry.biz as part of this year's GDC The well-connected industry insider and magazine boss Chris Dring now revealed that more and more publishers and production companies – which he does not want to name – are increasingly asking themselves whether support is becoming stagnant given the ever-increasing production costs for computer and video games (“flatlining”) and the partially declining console platform will still be worthwhile beyond 2024. The effort to make extra ports of AAA and AA titles, but also indie productions for Xbox Series PC and PS5 play. At least in Europe.
Making matters worse is that Microsoft's multiplatform strategy offers no real incentive for developers to directly support Xbox consoles. The fact that platform exclusives would become less and less worthwhile in the future also reinforced the downward trend. According to Dring, it is not yet being discussed openly, although the “floor radio at the GDC” would send clear signals. The discussion is likely to gain momentum again towards the end of the year, especially since Microsoft wants to announce new Xbox hardware for the “Holiday Season 2024”. Sony's plans for a PS5 Pro are also in the starting blocks, as is Nintendo's Switch successor, which is not expected to be announced until 2025.