Don’t Expect More Xbox One Exclusives Anytime Soon
There is no question Xbox fans have some reason for concern. At least when it comes to exclusives they do. So far this year, Sony has been outduelling Xbox when it comes to first party exclusives. That trend doesn’t seem to be changing anytime soon. Granted, the Xbox E3 2017 press conference showcased plenty of great games. From Forza Motorsport 7 to Crackdown 3, Microsoft has some slick looking first party games on the way. Yet compared to the competition, Microsoft’s upcoming lineup of exclusives feels a bit underwhelming. According to an industry insider, we should not expect that to change anytime soon.
A couple of days ago, NeoGAF poster and well-known industry insider “Matt” shared some behind-the-scenes information. Specifically, he shared some info about what’s going on with Microsoft and the Xbox One. Unfortunately, the news is the shits. Keep in mind, you do need to take this all with a grain of salt. That being said, this insider has been deemed reliable in the past and has been a solid source of information. According to “Matt”, Microsoft doesn’t plan to increase their first party spending anytime soon. He said:
“MS is not meaningfully increasing their investments in or focus on first party. That could change, I would love for that to change, but it hasn’t. There could be things I don’t know about, or I’m wrong about something, I never claimed to be infallible. But I know enough to have a pretty good view of the situation.”
We sure hope he is wrong and it does have us asking the question, why is one of the biggest companies in the world playing trying to scale back on first party game development? Well, recent Xbox One exclusives haven’t proven to be a worthwhile investment according to the insider:
“Their software efforts have underperformed this gen, and the Xbox division doesn’t have a blank check to do whatever they want. They have a focus on cost controls and profitability. Spending a lot on game dev doesn’t fit into that in their view.”
So basically, it looks like Microsoft is throwing in the towel on some levels. They just aren’t going to blow the bank to try and compete with Sony and the PS4. That battle has already been won. The Xbox One X could provide to be a massive momentum shifter for the company, so who knows what lies ahead for fans. In the meantime,
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