It’s obvious that Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft are the three titans in the gaming industry, but Microsoft isclearly in third placeat this point as far as hardware sales are concerned. The Nintendo Switch is on the verge of becoming thebest-selling console of all time, and the PS5 has already passed the last-gen Xbox One in overall sales. The Xbox Series X|S family lags far behind with just over 28 million units sold combined at the time of this writing.
Don’t get me wrong, 28 million is a big number, but when it’s doubled in sales by the PS5 and more than 100 million behind the Switch, it paints a grim picture as to who’s winning the generation from Microsoft’s perspective. To make matters worse, massively popular games like Baldur’s Gate 3 andBlack Myth: Wukongskipped the Xbox consoles at launch. Baldur’s Gate 3 eventually released several months later, but there’s still no release date for Wukong. Some smaller games are skipping the platform completely. It’s a worrying trend, and it’s one Microsoft is trying to address.
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Microsoft asks why devs are skipping Xbox releases
A concerning trend
Microsoft Xbox Series S
On September 30, Microsoft published adeveloper blogtalking about Xbox and the future of game development. The interesting part was Microsoft openly wondering why developers aren’t making Xbox versions of their games.
“If you are making video games, we’re interested in hearing from you,” said Dr. Deborah Hendersen, Principal User Researcher for Xbox. “If you aren’t on Xbox, we’d love to know why. And honestly, if you are using our competitor’s products, you probably have a great perspective we could learn from!”
From where I’m sitting, that seems like an easy question to answer. Baldur’s Gate 3 developer Larian Studios' Director of Publishing Michael Douse explained the game was late to release on Xbox because of the weaker Xbox Series S console.
“We’ve said many times in the past that the issue is getting split-screen working on the Series S, which is taking more time, but is in progress,“he tweeted. “This is a huge technical hurdle, but we are unable to release the game on the ecosystem without this feature.”
Microsoft released the Series S to give everyone an affordable way to get into the next-gen consoles, and, on paper, it was a great idea. I love my Series S, and I play it way more than my Series X, but I’m aware of the limitations. While there weren’t many issues when the games were cross-gen with the PS4 and Xbox One generation, the problems are rearing their ugly heads now. The performance gulf will grow even larger soon with the release of the PS5 Pro. It’s been confirmed that Diablo 4, a first-party Microsoft game, will be one of thefirst PS5 Pro-enhanced titles. This means a first-party game runs the best on a Sony console, which is a strange sight.
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It’s not just power
Poor sales and communication.
While most of the AAA third-party releases make their way over eventually, indie titles aren’t always a guarantee. Enotria: The Last Song, a souls-like RPG, is skipping Xbox, andcited poor communicationwith Microsoft as the reason. That’s just one example, but it’s the start of what might become a worrying trend for Xbox owners. HAAK, a post-apocalyptic action-adventure game, gave the same reason as Enotria as to why it won’t be on Xbox. The developerstweeted a screenshotshowing it had been several months since they submitted their game only to have no communication since.
Overall game sales are something that has to be kept in mind. Where a AAA publisher can weather lower sales, it’s devastating for smaller studios that lose money by developing an Xbox port that never sells. Limited Run Games, a company that gives physical releases to games that don’t have them, sometimes has to skip Xbox due to poor sales. Limited Run’s CEO Josh Fairhurst said the sales don’t always offset the development costs, and that’s why you sometimes see a Switch and PlayStation release but not an Xbox one.
“It’s not that we can’t develop Xbox ports or that we’re too cheap to do it, it’s that we don’t earn anything on the game digitally,“he said. “Physical game sales are not high enough on Xbox to offset our development costs, so we have no option but to skip Xbox on these titles.”
The problem for Xbox here is a whole generation of players were trained to go digital. This is a problem with PlayStation as well, and it’s aconcern I voiced before, but it feels amplified with Xbox. Perhaps the defining feature of Xbox this generation is Game Pass. This subscription service gives you access to hundreds of games, including all first-party Microsoft games, so there’s a wide range of games available. It’s to a point where even if a game isn’t on Game Pass at launch, there’s a sense of inevitability that it’s coming in the future, and many players wait it out if it’s something they don’t plan on playing right away.
Obviously, that’s not ideal for developers who rely on game sales. Game Pass isn’t something Microsoft can simply walk back, and althoughprices have increased, it’s still a clear selling point of the Xbox ecosystem. As a consumer, I can see the clear value in Game Pass, but developers might not see it that way.
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Things might not get better
It’ll take work
People who have invested in large digital libraries typically want to stick with the platform they’ve done that on. With backwards compatibility being something both Microsoft and Sony focus on now, it means your games aren’t left behind on an old generation. For example, I bought Elden Ring digitally on my PS4 before getting a PS5, and then I finished my playthrough there. If I switched to Xbox, I would’ve had to buy the game twice and that wouldn’t have made any sense.
With the PS5 clearly winning this generation over the Xbox, it means more people are investing in their digital libraries on the PlayStation platform. Unless people are willing to ditch their digital games and start fresh on a new platform, the gap will continue to widen in future generations. Digital is here to stay as evidenced by the Xbox Series X refreshhaving no disc drive, and the PS5 Pro offering a disc drive as an attachable accessory. Both companies are all-in on the digital market, and Sony simply has a wider customer base to appeal to. This essentially means sales on the PS5 will be higher than Xbox, regardless of the game. Microsoft seems to understand this because they have even started sharing their first-party lineup with Sony by porting over Sea of Thieves, Grounded, Hi-Fi Rush, and Sentiment.
It’s difficult to pinpoint how Microsoft can get back on track. Asking developers why they aren’t making Xbox versions of their games is a good step, but it’s also an answer we’re already aware of. The existence of the Xbox Series S and its need to have feature parity with the Xbox Series X version means it’s a difficult task for companies to develop for it. I’d like to see Microsoft truly competitive again, and while they are taking steps toward doing it, I’m worried it might be too late.
