Microsoft Is Investigating Why Devs Are Prioritising PS5 Over Xbox

Gamepass, smaller market, Series S limitations, declining market share, juice not worth the squeeze.

Harder dev tools along with a far less active user base when it comes to actually buying games.

The wider majority of Xbox hardcore do not touch a game unless it’s spoon fed to them via Game Pass Ultimate.

Gamepass - why get a limited fee where there's more potential for more money by actually selling your game + the series S is holding back xbox - tool ages for baldurs gate 3 due to compatibility issues between series S and X

Pretty simple, devs want to make money. Microsoft has trained their audience not to buy games.

Playstation is better to develop for as the requirement to make a game compatible with inferior hardware isn't there. Throw Gamepass into the mix and it's to see why devs head to Playstation. Why take a percentage from Gamepass when you can actually sell your games.

Maybe because Xbox is primarily a thing in the US, while PS has appeal worldwide?

I mean it's really not hard to see that dev's don't want to develop games for the potato that is the Series S

It’s the economy, stupid.

And in this case the economy is the install base, which is so bad for Xbox Microsoft won’t even tell us what it is. Why develop a game for an install base so small the company won’t even tell you what it is?🤷🏻‍♂️

Quite the mystery...

XB is entering Yoshida PS4 Sony phase. Humility brings prosperity. The next XB, based on AMD cpu and Nvidia GPU is going to slay.

Bit late isn't it?

I remember when the conversation was reversed with the PS3, but we will see if Microsoft is able to rally. It feels like some of the damage is becoming permanent (gamepass, overall install base, etc.)

@rjejr c'mon R, you've been here long enough that you know xb series consoles, although far behind ps5 sales, can't be considered, by any stretch of the imagination, small install base.
Attach rate tho, yeah, something to talk about.

On top of the already mentioned reasons, I would add the console sales numbers: PS5 crushes Xbox Series in every part of the world.
Any game released on PS5 would benefit from more potential buyers by default, adding an important weight to the platform decision making.

In other news, "Microsoft investigates why children enjoy sweets over vegetables."

Game pass is an amazing deal for gamers, but not for the game devs, I get the idea of the series s but it has factually holding back this gen.

@Medic_alert you forget who was the dev darling and who was the pariah during the xb360/ps3 era. Xb had the devs eating from the palm of its hand... yet, just before the dawn of ps4, Sony changed its tune and became something different, correcting its course and preparing the way of the busines for ps4. Same thing is happening now with XB. They are not doing this as a measure for this gen. It's the next one, which MS will start one year earlier than Sony.

@TheDudeElDuderino It wouldn't suprise me in the slightest if this were to be the case. Funny how pro-consumer corporations get when they're behind. Competition is always a good thing, so would hate to see them shrink even more.

But seeing how wishy-washy they've been lately, who knows what next gen has to offer. 🤷‍♂️

@TheDudeElDuderino US and UK have decent install base. Europe and Asia have absolutely miniscule install base. A lot of the games skipping Xbox seem to have national appeal; WuKong - made by Chinese dev and popular in China, Enotria - made by Italian dev. Then there's all the Japanese games like Gundam Breaker 4 and all the JRPGs I can't keep up with. For those studios it would be a lot of work to develop for series s/x for such a small amount of potential players

When you have an audience on PlayStation 5 over double the main rival, developers are going to prioritise making games for a console where they are more likely to turn a profit. Also. Microsoft are more focused on game pass and although it’s a guaranteed money earner for a developer initially, the money they receive will pail in comparisons to what they would receive by making sales in number, especially for an awesome game like Lies of P, which only recently left Gamepass, yet that championed over a million sales very quickly on PlayStation and PC ( I assume). With all these questions being asked, Microsoft themselves are going to focus on releasing games on PlayStation given the untapped sales that can be reached. Each generation will further entrench the mass market users that there is no need for any other console than a PlayStation and less and less developer will run the risk of losing out on sales and just focus where the money can be made.

If Microsoft is a serious company, then they need to spend at least a billion dollars to buy a couple of investigation and survey agencies to conduct the necessary research

@TheDudeElDuderino I don’t think power is really the point

@get2sammyb that and resources saved developing for a single sku... soon to be two sku's but the difference isn't so large as that between X and S.

The Series S has been such an arse ache for this generation.

They have conditioned their audience to not buy games. Simple as that. It's crazy how every trailer of a major games there's tons of comments with "is it coming to gamepass???". Even saw that on GTAVI lol. So why would you squeeze out a current gen game to run on a Series S to sell maybe 50 extra copies.

I think Gamepass as good as it's been for day 1 really has biten them in the backside and actually made it a little worse for them in the long term when supporting it's own console. Now they have had to go multi platform to get money back

I could tell them that for free. If this is true, it shows how clueless they really are.

@Dragon83 so we can say the regular ps5 is holding back sony now right? I mean you say the series s is holding it back cause it's less powerful so by that theory then the regular ps5 is holding back sony cause it's less powerful than the ps5 pro.

Nintendo had this issue once. So they took a look around and made a system people want to buy games for and play on that isn't just "The Other Guy But Lesser".

Mystery solved. Where's my cheque?

@Frost22 not even remotely in the same space

@get2sammyb It most definitely is that simple.

I am pretty sure they already know the reasons without doing any research.

• Smaller market share
• Many XBOX users are only interested in GamePass so non-GP games sell poorly on XBOX
• Need to do extra work to target the Series-S

@Jayslow who says we don't buy games? We absolutely buy games.

@Frost22 the pro isn't even out yet. If it released the same time as the PS5, then yes we can say that. By the end of this gen games will struggle on base PS5 just as we see on PS4 vs PS4 pro

@Boucho11 same thing

@roe and most of them are coming to PS anyway..

@SlipperyFish not yet but the second it is the same rule applies unless you're a hypocrite that is.

@DonJorginho harder dev tools? Possibly, but then that would also be true of pc - both use direct x. PlayStation use bespoke development tools unique to their platform unlike Xbox which shares commonality with pc. It’s one of the reasons why PlayStation bought nixxes, they specialise in porting to pc (which ironically would probably make them fairly adept at porting PlayStation games to Xbox).

I think it’s more likely that optimisation is harder for the limited power of series s compared to ps5 and obviously the Xbox series install base is half the size of PlayStation 5’s.

This might be the most obvious thing in the world. I'm guessing these conversations with devs look like "yes, we understand your concerns, and you probably won't make any sales, but we can eventually put your game on GP. Isn't that great?"

@TheDudeElDuderino I would say Gamepass changes the equation a little. Although how it’s changed next generation is yet to be seen. We have seen small devs praise gamepass and mid sized devs regret gamepass. It’s a huge gamble on revenue for them. Next gen will be interesting and we will see if Xbox can gain market share in the console space.

@Frost22 yes. The same rule does apply. Cross-gen releases are slowing down PS5's potential as well.

Purely anecdotal, I know 3 xbox s/x owners and not one of them have bought a game this gen.

@Frost22 be closer to say ps4 than ps5

Because more people buy PS because there are more exclusive games (although not a much as there used to) and therefore more dev priorise the console that sells more

Investigation done. Your welcome, Microsoft

I am not hating on Xbox but sometimes I do feel we should open an investigation on why third parties are still developing for it. Doesn’t seem profitable at all to develop a Xbox version of their games, unless it’s pay-rolled. In my life I have seen consoles I owned, like the Dreamcast, Gamecube and WiiU, all with way higher attach rates, left in the dust way sooner by some publishers.

@Nei it's has a over 30 million install base. That's not small

@Nakatomi_Uk untrue

Microsoft has really scored an “own goal” with GamePass, I feel.

Why would developers write software for Xbox, if Microsoft are only going to give it away for free?

I have no actual bias, however. I own both a PS5 and a Series X. The PS5 is getting far more use right now, but I will eventually get around to playing Starfield’s Shattered Space expansion.

@Boucho11 exactly, series x was already supposedly the most powerful console this gen (debatable) and it didn’t help them slay that’s for sure!

I thought it was all because of these secret deals that PlayStation had made?!

I think problem also lies in design of UI. PS5 have chaotic user interface, but Xbox is pure hell. That mix of icons of games, advertisement, dlcs, options etc. is like crazed PC. And of course GamePass is stop sign for most of developers.

For that money they could probably fund 1;2 indie projects

@Matthewnh From what I've heard about Shattered Space, I wouldn't bother, Unless of course you like the style of the game

I understood that MS was leaving the console segment to become a publisher. Why are they still hitting the dead horse?

I think most people have nailed it here, a far smaller user base exhibiting no growth, Gamepass makes putting any effort in pointless, two SKUs - one of which is drastically underpowered. a far more complicated dev environment, and a souless submission process.

And as people have also rightly pointed out, Sony is in a 2 SKU position now. But in a way more balanced form. And they've been here before with the PS4 so everyone knows what to expect.

With the PS3 Sony got what they deserved. They handed the 360 the market by being a year late and to difficult to develop for. Luckily for MS they didn't have to actually do anything to succeed in that otherwiise they would have found some way to screw it up.

Which they did with the Xbone, by thinking they actually get gaming, they ended up handing it back to Sony. Big style.

And now they are on a pay to win streak because they still are incapable of understanding what gaming means to players. Honestly the market would be so much better off without them, leave room for someone else who actually is about games and not data aquisition to rise to the challenge.

@CrashBandicoat yeah, that makes sense - I guess the consoles I was citing where a lot more diverse and any port needed more work, even though probably sold more (in proportion).

This same article is on Purexbox and it is amazing how slanted this article is.

Simple, games just don't sell on XBOX. Their market shares keep getting smaller and smaller since they simply couldn't even penetrate the Asian market for years, no matter what they do.

Becoming a publisher like SEGA did would be the right move, when your leader himself even admitted that XBOX already lost the console wars and couldn't recover.

@cuttlefishjones even then PS3 outsold Xbox in the end on the back of strong exclusives. I still think gamepass is a viable way forward but only if they focus on on a better production pipeline.

Some consulting agency is going to get paid millions of dollars to write a report with the most straightforward information you can imagine and present it to the clueless Microsoft brass.

Sometimes I really think that a group of monkeys run these game companies

Why investigate? the answer is obvious.

Duh its gamepass, everybody knows that. They have to prioritize SELLING games

It feels like even Microsoft is prioritizing PS5 over Xbox Series consoles these days.

I guess that's what happens when you train your playerbase to pay a monthly fee and not actually buy games.

Top tip MS sell more consoles - second tip for free reward people for buying games ?

PS5 61.7 million units sold.
Series X and S 28.3 million units sold.
There simple.
Add in Gamepass and Series S being a pain for some developers.
The fact that Microsoft, one of the biggest companies in the world needs to investigate this is crazy. Just blows my mind.

@tpepper1985 nailed it.

Xbox isn't a global brand resulting in poor console sales and Microsoft has conditioned its player base into not buying video games because of Game Pass. There, done. It's pretty simple.

@Americansamurai1
100% this, which is why it is particularly infuriating when Microsoft uses their poor business decisions as justification for buying up large swathes of the gaming market.

It's too late now for this. Devs were skipping Xbox in the past for specific reasons and nowadays there are other reasons including that they (Xbox) are not even prioritizing their console and some 1P published games are releasing first on PC and later on Xbox.

Better late than never I suppose. Good luck to them (honestly) as Sony needs the competition to keep it on its toes.

I love how the comment section here answered the question immediately, yet the heads of Microsoft that only understand corporate mumbo jumbo need years of investigating to still not know lol.

At launch MS had a two tier option for hardware. The entry level into the new Xbox ecosystem was lower than that of a PS5. Sony, yes, had two models, but it had the same specs minus the disc drive.

Fast forward 5 years, the Series S is holding back the Series X severely since they need to be treated as one console. Lesson learned.

Seriously, how is Phil Spencer still head of Xbox?

Obviously, deep pocket, evil sony is money hatting developers and the trillion dollar underdog is left in the rain. It is unlikely that developers would favour a platform on which they can make more money simply because of the larger install base and a platform on which people actually still buy games. It is also unlikely that developers see different next gen specs like the xbox s and x as an obstacle rather than an interesting challenge. But who knows maybe tides will turn since developers are now forced on the playstation side to adjust their games for the hated, not out-selling ps5pro and who likes to work on a system with more bling /s

@tpepper1985 Wrong on Game Pass, devs have spoken about that and say the money they are paid from that covers their R&D costs and development costs etc. They then make profit from the sales.

Most likely it's the stupid idea of forcing games to run on strong hardware 'Series X' and weak hardware the Series S which limits what they can do.

I would say player numbers is the main thing. Now - if the PS5 is about to be made redundant just 2 years into its release that could change in the next gen

@Futureshark I dont think so. I think they are doing it now to have "everybody" on board for the next gen.

@The_Wailing_Doom I think after the Activision deal, the Xbox division is being closely watched. Cod on game pass this year is a big test, if it does increase subscribers numbers and lose sales than I wouldn't be surprised to see Phil removed an the division go fully third party.

"Third-place company wants to know why developers are going to the market leader."

Because games sell more copies on PlayStation. Surely they must know that already???

Because ps5 console sold way more than xbox? I mean, the reason is really clear 😅

Also thanks to gamepass xbox gamers didn't buy games and wait for it to be available on gamepass.

Oh, and also xbox series s, xbox should made xbox series x & series x digital, rather than xbox series x & series s.

It’s their own damn faults for pushing Game Pass so hard and not dropping the S.

MS, don’t pay anyone to investigate this! Read this comments section and you’ll find every single correct answer!

Everyone (rightly) blaming a sub-par console (series s), smaller install base, and gamepass... but, let's not forget the candid reports of developers trying to reach out to xbox, attempting to get their games on the system, and being entirely ignored or mishandled. Seems they're partly at fault with how they deal with clients and with not trying to actively build a positive rapport.

@Medic_alert Can you post this to Mr Spencer? He might want to consider that a moment 😉

@ButterySmooth30FPS That would be Nintendo then in sales numbers terms.

It's got a bigger market share and users aren't as thirsty for the games to hit the subscription service.

It's hardly rocket science.

You don't need a private investigator to figure this one out, it obviously has to do with the fact that PlayStation outsells Xbox 3:1 and they want to maximize potential revenue. Not to mention the lack of GP means that people are actually buying games on the PS side as well.

Seems rather self explanatory. Do they really need to research this?

@Altaria_97 Kinda proves MS really has no idea what it’s doing anymore, huh?

Microsoft Is Investigating Why Devs Are Prioritising PS5 Over Xbox.

Me: Why should they investigate the developers?
Just look at the mirror and do self reflection, think what have they done for their XBOX.

When the XBOX CEO just keep persistent selling Game Pass as their business practice, not providing enough physical games release for their XBOX machines, really lazy to make more 1st party family oriented games for their XBOX, keep pushing the agenda by telling peoples about digital only macine is a bright future, keep giving away their 1st party exclusive to their competitors Sony and Nintendo, peoples will think there is NOTHING special from their current XBOX machine and why should peoples buy XBOX machine for nothing interesting.

The XBOX CEO is really delusional to think that terrible business practice ideas is a bright future and when the XBOX sales getting worse, they just playing blame game and lamenting nonsense.

Why I'm not on Xbox? Well you make a compelling case of not needing one at all.

I didn’t even know things were skipping Xbox releases. I just assumed everything was multi-platform except for things like Astrobot, or recent Final Fantasy games. Even Idea Factory started releasing their games on Xbox. But seriously, do they really need to investigate why? Pretty sure a quick Google search would suffice.

Or 3 to 1 sales have something to do with it 🤣

I just don't think there's room for three main consoles on the market, Nintendo and Sony have history and will always be an household staple for kids, casuals and hard-core gamers. Xbox are always playing catch up and don't have enough brand loyalty yet, especially now that they are releasing games on Playstation, and also Phones via Cloud.

Also they have very poor sales in Asian countries, so niche games from those regions will skip its platform.

@TheDudeElDuderino 😁😁😁😁

@S1ayeR74 I actually mean the developers who don't get on Gamepass. I can imagine there are a fair amount of people who will put off buying because they hope the game will eventually come to Gamepass. There are no guarantees of course, and I imagine older games get much less lucrative deals. It happens on PlayStation too of course with Extra, but there are more potential customers so it's less of a risk.

I have never subbed to Extra, but if I had I imagine I would also buy less games, I don't know what percentage of the XBOX player base is subbed to GamePass but the last numbers I could find are around 30 million (This does include PC though) vs the 7 million on Extra. Given that PS5 consoles outnumber XBOXs more than 2:1 a huge number of their players are subbed to Gamepass vs Extra. It makes sense since that is their whole push.

I think it's hard to deny that Gamepass doesn't have a negative overall impact on game sales, I mean they added an extra tier to try and offset the no doubt enormous amount of money they were going to lose on Call of Duty sales this year that says enough.

Because PC master race is the best way to play is the real answer .

I always have the impression that there are more Xbox fanboys here than PlayStation fanboys 😆😆 some trying to defend the indefensible... Xbox is dying, if it weren't for Microsoft's other divisions Xbox wouldn't even exist anymore... the market share is worse than the Dreamcast when Sega stopped producing it.

@djlard as someone that didn’t like the PS4 Ui and liked the Xbox One Ui just enough to give it a passing grade. The roles have flipped this gen, i find the PS5 Ui cleaner, less to no ad’s and while it’s not perfect i find it more enjoyable to use than my Xbox. Way too cluttered. Now with the PS5 new welcome tab with widgets. Wow i am loving that. That was a huge improvement in my opinion.

It's called "money". 😂

It’s clear this is PUSH pushing an article for clicks. I read it on Pure Xbox and while it mentions the PS5, it largely talks about making better tools, services and all around sharing idea’s for easier development all the way around. Not asking purely why do you like to make games for PS5 vs Xbox. Man this industry will never learn to stop taking things out of context and making fires where they aren’t even necessary. But flame on, i am sure it makes someone a few dollars. Tho if you’d like to be educated like myself and others I would say read the article to see it’s very much trying to accomplish something much different then this headline stated.

I said it in the PureXbox article about "why I'm glad Xbox doesn't have a pro", and I'll say it here in this article: It's just bad form to be writing these articles on a platform fan site about internal issues with another platform. Everyone knows i think the Pro is walking doom for the benefits of console, but I don't think that argument belongs on an XB site. I think this investigation is a joke and they already know the answer, and so does everyone else, but that's an argument for the Xbox community to have, not the PS community. Just poor form in both articles to fish for engagement.

The endless narrative from posters on this site of "Xbox trained customers to not buy games" gets tiring. Xbox game sales have been roughly equivalent relative to install base to Playstation. Obviously first party game sales are much lower, and that's the loss leader of the platform, you get the first party games for a subscription, but as most major third party games are not on GP, their sales in percentage of install base are roughly similar to PS, taking into account different genres perform better on each, where a new JRPG will do better on PS while, say, a new Assassin's Creed might do better relative to install base on Xbox.

The biggest problem is just that the install base is still much smaller so it becomes the lowest priority of all systems because the total possible sales are simply lower. If they intend to fix that by making the next Xbox a full Windows PC running PC games they can eliminate that problem. Time will tell. But they're not going to suddenly sell a bunch of consoles.

@SlipperyFish FWIW Wukong isn't skipping Xbox, it's just delayed like Baldur's Gate 3 was.

Keep hearing ps5 is easier to develop for

I should imagine a number of reasons:
If you want an exclusive deal PS5 has a bigger global market share, so unless you want to aim solely for NA, makes more sense to go on PS5. If you only want to sell to Japan then you'd want to aim for Switch over Xbix.

Harder to develop for Xbox, (tools apparently) but also you need to make a game that runs on both Series X and S.... Whereas for Switch and PS5 you only need to make it run for one console (and going forward optionally enhance it for pro)

@NEStalgia Wukong's success does make it more likely for them to try and get the game on Xbox, but if they have to keep reaching out to developers like with BG3 to get games on the platform, that's not good for them

If you have to ask then its another reason for a dev to avoid you, because it means you cannot see any problem with the business model you have.

Anyways, from what I've gathered from some developers it mainly boils down to "Its a hassle". Its like developing for Mac, too many checkbox to check and too little return.

@TheDudeElDuderino

“Yea, well ya know…that’s just like…your opinion, man.”

Sorry I couldn’t resist. 😂

@Neither_scene

The graphics SDK is only one of many components of a platforms dev tools; its the highest profile (most visible) to end-users but it is only one part of the package. Many game engines, either third party, or in-house, abstract the graphics SDK (even PC only titles because there is more than DirectX, like OpenGL, Vulkan, and Metal to name a few), so from a developers perspective this is often irrelevant unless they are building a new engine from scratch.

they will never learn

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1119409106374119506/1291067931345817660/image.png?ex=66fec035&is=66fd6eb5&hm=8f92174dd02db6cd6bcd1b7dec983d86d5019c8f3fc87cae9e7473b6b1e3c547&

Same reason those games don't come to switch

I know I am about to play Indiana Jones for free when it comes out. Saves me $70

Something series s something something

It’s pretty bloody obvious really. Xbox are the least popular brand.

This is a potential misstep from Xbox.

They have plenty of devs who used to publish on Playstation, after all, who can explain in great technical detail the differences in development from one platform to the other.

did they ask the same questions when dev's favored the 360 over the ps3? i love my xbox , but its clear they favor the ps5 more because there are way more ps5's in the wild.

You gotta love the irony of some comments here. 😂

MS has always been terrible at PR. This applies to devs equally. As they recover from the disastrous XOne release, it will take time to gain back trust from smaller devs. The Series S, while making for excellent clickbait is not the problem.

@nitraM I can't argue with that but still Switch is worse than Series S...
I think is more about sale numbers than actual power of hardware.
If xbox had more sales close to PS5, then Devs surely could consider worth the trying to make it happen.
But as sales going down for the MS they don't care and don't even try.
It's the same that had been happened to Nintendo's WiiU...
Also, as others said, their focus from MS side on game pass seems to be their biggest mistake of all.

Only Microsoft Xbox could be that tone deaf, and clueless. Game pass, & Series S. You created a lower end console a 3rd of the power of its higher end counterpart.

I will say one thing it’s not great for gamers Xbox being in the position it is in.
Yes PlayStation will get some Xbox studio games.
But that pales into comparison to compare how Sony can be ok and not try really hard.

Sony seem to perform a lot better when they have the competition breathing down their neck.

If Xbox were releasing top quality games and selling consoles like in the xbox360 days and even a mid generation console upgrade, Sony would be trying a lot lot harder to get our money and performing better and watching how much they charge us for things and would have better customer relations.

They really don't understand basic economic structures?

@TheDudeElDuderino It is a small group that still buys their games.

I work in the industry.

We had to port a game to Xbox, and while we actually sold extremely well on Xbox compared to PlayStation (due to Sonys extremely unfair, completely subjective store front, that does not reflect actually which games are doing well), the porting to the Series S was an absolute nightmare.

Having a split platform generation like that, means, most cases, a TON of extra work.

If it wasn’t for the Series S, I would say, as an indie dev, being on Xbox is a lot better, because you get way more visibility rather than paid ads or placements.

I can save them the trouble:
1) smaller demographic
2) less restrictions - I'm looking at your Xbox series S...

As one of the few impartial people on this site, it's good that MS are taking feedback to at least try and address their issues. Healthy competition into next gen is what will keep prices down, and prevent Sony from going all out digital like it wanted to with the PS5 (They thought the Series S was the main console until about a year before hence the CPU overclocking, sharp GPU uplift and the disc drive slapped on the side in addition to the digital version).

Sony should seek feedback with it's live service offerings to avoid something of Concords scale again.

Jesus, I had no idea they were this clueless.

@tpepper1985
As someone who had both Extra and Switch Online subscriptions I will say that the changes they did to my consumer habits was bare miminum.

Unlike GamePass both lack the D1 appeal and such only older games, and on Switch's case take that literally, are available for download.

But all in all I don't think GamePass or the smaller playerbase is the reason devs are skipping Xbox, as a dev the only thing that stops me from using a product is the lack of support and Microsoft has been kinda lacking that lately.

@MathiasBS are you allowed to say what game it was?
Consoles opening the gates to indie games has generally been good I think, but so many of them, and so little quality control nowadays.

@koverby sometimes, there's a man... I won't say a hero, 'cause what's a hero, but, sometimes there's a man, and I'm talking about the koverby here, sometimes there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place, he fits right in there. And that's the koverby.

@TheDudeElDuderino

🤣🤣🤣

Would have thought this was very obvious 😅

Just asking why is a problem. A competent marketing team should be on top of any trends and communicated so within the company. The problem then may be a poor marketing team or a good team, but high levels not litening.

@nomither6 more like why get an xbox when their games COME TO PC anyway lol

It's not about console power, if it was nobody would make Switch games. And solving the type of development niggles Microsoft will identify through this type of research will be little more than a rounding error in total sales. The PS3 was a ball ache to produce games for, but Playstation is so popular that the games got made regardless.

It's purely about the (reduced) money to be made on Xbox.

Same reason people stopped making Saturn and Dreamcast games.

@cuttlefishjones and despite all that. PS3 still had more lifetime sales......you gotta laugh 🤣

@Darylb88 Totally agree 👍🏻

Because you have an older generation console which is holding back advancements and then you had an industry leading Xbox PC Game Pass which was envied by everyone... and then ruined it with constant price increases and changes in tiers.

Xbox is a dying brand. They just arent doing anything fun or innovative. Plus, the Xbox controller feels like a Tonka toy compared to Sense

Because it's the lead platform, obviously. Microsoft seem to forget that back in the PS3/360 era. The 360 was mostly the lead platform, that's why a lot of the 3rd party games sucked on PS3 compared to 360.

If a game isn't on Game pass then some publishers and devs will think twice about porting their games to Xbox since many have said in the past that the development cost even for a game already finished for another system may be higher than any sales revenue will make them back especially if their game is considered more niche in western markets.

@tpepper1985 pretty much

In general we can blame the series S in particular for holding back this gen. Every multiplatform release suffered because of the dumb MS rule that series S has to be supported.

@Strikke exactly , lol

As a gamer that just takes as many awesome consoles as possible, I've bought PlayStation, Nintendo, Sega, Atari and Xbox. I would love to buy an Xbox again I just don't have a reason to. I have a PS5 and a switch, at this point I can play Xbox games on PC so I may as well just get one of those instead

Xbox Series is one but I mean do we need parity? When 3DS/Vita/Wii/PS2/PSP and prior were examples and many had great not parity or close enough but different modes or otherwise not just lesser graphics.

Some were unique versions and the best. I don't care for parity but many people do. Sigh.

Sales numbers is another. Vita/Wii U and those Indies made unique games for them besides low sales but different times too, different hardware gimmicks to work with as well, just because big studios don't care or so. ID @ Xbox has it's place.

Gamepass and playerbase conditioning. Or just the stereotypes Indies, asian releases on Xbox have or otherwise towards the low sales in asia regions but stereotypes yet sizeable Nintendo/PS audience for asian releases by western audiences.

Or those of us buying up any we know of exclusive or asian dev games on OG Xbox/360 not just PS/Nintendo systems. But those are older systems so it's different nowadays those strategies/audiences/hardware and times aren't the same anymore.

The console/audience has as those that still buy games for Xbox digital/physical still exist out there. I only buy Xbox physical but haven't bought Indies on Xbox at all much either.

The APIs/support of tools or Microsoft's handling maybe? Maybe their PR or otherwise. I mean the communication of the RE4 to Xbox thing the Japanese side had I've heard about. Whether that is a thing still but for smaller devs and whatever the Xbox messaging is and what regions or departments or other things have happening.

It's possible but likely I assume they have that worked out these days to all regions or not spread out to enough regions the Xbox, console tax and other related things to setup whatever for other regions Xbox hasn't got a presence in but Microsoft still has of the PC space.

I mean I haven't picked up a Xbox games in a while that's new at all third or first party. I don't either PS4/5/Xbox 1st party anymore because the games just don't appeal to me and third parties are hit and miss as well.

as an older ex-xbox fan now Playstation fan i can say why xbox is declining into nothing if they don't change course, xbox are literally destroying themselves with their own stupid policies and more developers and gamers don't want to stick around anymore. a sharp change from the og xbox and xbox 360, xbox now has no exclusives, it has marketed itself against the hardcore gamers that previously stood by it with things like game pass, taking away games with gold and other minor changes. another huge change into mediocre censored gaming was when phil spencer took the reings and started hiring and succumbing to esg/dei and blackrock bribery 🤮. so sick of this stale mess of gaming, if all western xbox devs are censoring their art with no fanservice i'll just take my funding and gametime and put it elsewhere. when will these devs realize going woke will bankrupt them will it be too little to late for xbox?

Microsoft is getting exactly what it asked for. Game Pass created an environment that pays devs poorly and educated consumer to wait / only play "free" games ("free" i.e. being part of their game pass paid subscription).

Of course it has nothing to do with a host of rabid studio closures and many many thousands put out of employment

@LifeGirl 😂😂 the sarcasm is on fire

Xbox telling us we don't need an Xbox certainly isn't helping the issue.