GamesIndustry.biz CEO Chris Dring believes that the situation is very bad with Xbox as a hardware platform. The chains are said to have already asked for fewer consoles.
Want Xbox everywhere, at least on all screens
Because according to Dring, a major publisher must be unsure why they bothered to launch a major AAA game for Xbox last year. He does not reveal which game or publisher it is about, but it is clear that there is a crisis if major publishers see no point in launching on Xbox due to such weak hardware sales and general interest. Even a smaller developer is questioning whether they should bother with the Xbox Series X and S. The S in particular will make less sense for many of them who will instead prefer the Nintendo Switch, which has a huge customer base.
That these leaks are coming now is not surprising as Microsoft has long since announced that certain games will be ported to the Playstation 5. Now industry experts believe that almost the entire Xbox library will be found on Sony's console, and with that they also indirectly say that Xbox is dead as hardware. At the same time, Phil Spencer, Xbox boss, continues to hype up the possibility of an Xbox handheld game console. What everyone is wondering is whether it will be a streaming machine or one with powerful hardware. At least we can rule out that a handheld Xbox console will require an Xbox to work.
On a general basis, Dring's feeling is that things are a little better in the gaming industry than all the cuts would suggest and that there is money "out there."
Former Xbox boss Peter Moore believes Microsoft is working on the big questions now:
"Peter Moore, who was the head of Xbox in the 2000s, believes that all Xbox headquarters around the world are asking themselves very important questions about the way forward, related to AI: "Like Microsoft with Phil Spencer and Satya Nadella at the head of coming and teams ask what is the future, what is the grand strategy that can be initiated with Azure and AI? What do we do with AI game development? How can we develop the games faster, cheaper and with fewer employees? These are questions I think are being asked now.”