MICROSOFT IS BECOMING A 3RD PARTY DEVELOPER! Kinda. Sorta. Not Really
73In early 2024, rumors were swirling around whether Microsoft was looking to pull a Sega and completely get out of the hardware business and become a 3rd party software creator. This is something that many people had asked whether or not it would be coming to fruition. Well, in February 2024 Phil Spencer, Sarah Bond and Matt Booty shared updates on the Xbox business and both confirmed and clarified what the ongoing strategies would be.
Check out the Xbox Podcast with all the updates at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KGlD9SO3rKU
What is Microsoft doing:
What Microsoft announces is that 4 games will be added to other platforms from Microsoft Studios and the other studios owned by Microsoft. These titles will be titles that have been available on Xbox for over a year and, generally speaking, be more games that lend themselves to multiplatform as well. The way I interpreted what they discussed these would be more community-based games where it makes sense to allow people to play across multi-platform. For me, this screams games like Fortnight, Minecraft, Gears of War, and Roblox-style games that would allow you to continue your progress across systems and ecosystems.
What Microsoft is NOT doing:
Xbox hardware is not going away, at least at this time. They did discuss how Xbox hardware was important to their overall portfolio, but they didn't speak specifically about Series X, Series S, or any other first-party hardware. They did discuss Windows and XBOX on PC, but nothing specifically about current hardware. I think this is deliberate and how they are looking at Xbox as a cloud service as much as a hardware platform.
What Should You Do:
First and foremost do not freak out, your stuff will work the same today, tomorrow, and into the future. I think it is great that they will offer their software on other platforms, similar to how Playstation has offered MLB The Show for a few years to the Nintendo Switch and Xbox Players. If we could get something like this for, say, Halo, Forza, Battletoads, isn't that a great thing?
#MIcrosoft #Xbox #PhilSpencer #XboxOnPC