We’re building plans for the 25th anniversary of Halo and Xbox," Microsoft confirms in a new interview. "We have such a rich heritage, you have t...

[Windows Central]

In a new interview, Microsoft confirmed plans to "celebrate" its Xbox gaming division's 25th anniversary milestone, which also coincides with its big launch exclusive — Halo.

We’re building plans for the 25th anniversary of Halo and Xbox," Microsoft confirms in a new interview. "We have such a rich heritage, you have t... : Read more

 

[Ron-F]

Knowing the current leadership, they will say Halo is done and, as a send off commemoration they will release ports of MMC to Switch, Playstation, macOS, and Linux,

Seriously, this might be the tentative release date of a new Halo game (or remake) and the new console, although I would like to see Halo 5 ported to MMC or, at least, released as a PC game.

 

[HeyCori]

I'm calling it. There's going to be a Halo themed Series S, dashboard wallpaper, and new maps in Halo Infinite. Oh, and probably some mini documentary about the history of Halo.

 

[fatpunkslim]

In a new interview, Microsoft confirmed plans to "celebrate" its Xbox gaming division's 25th anniversary milestone, which also coincides with its big launch exclusive — Halo.

We’re building plans for the 25th anniversary of Halo and Xbox," Microsoft confirms in a new interview. "We have such a rich heritage, you have t... : Read more

@Jez Corden

Core Xbox fans have been left concerned what expanding to competing platforms so aggressively.

How can we say "so aggressively", what objective arguments allow you to say that? Only 4 first party games have been ported to other platforms, and we are talking about 2 old service games from 5 and 8 years old and 2 small games which sold very little (pentement, hifi rush). Where is the aggression?

I am of course not talking about Indiana Jones which is a Disney license and historically multi-platform games.

Xbox has 3x more studios and 3x more exclusive licenses than Paystation, these few games sent to other consoles are a drop in the ocean! Where is the aggression? If you do the math correctly, Xbox has more exclusive games that have been released and will be released than PlayStation, it's a fact, I invite you to make the list! Where is the aggression?

With the strength of game development that Xbox has, I'm not shocked that some games are released on other platforms, when an Xbox game is released on another platform, 5 others are Xbox exclusive, not counting exclusive games from third party publishers like stalker 2, ark 2, 33 immortals, etc... Where is the aggression?

If you think that sending games as a pentiment or old service games that are already more than 5 years old is aggressive, it's not core Xbox fans we're talking about, but hardcore Xbox fans, which you I'm obviously part of using these kinds of terms.

Be careful with the terms you use, there are already enough anti-xbox trolls who enjoy spreading fake news and false assumptions, there's no point in adding to them with this kind of caricature.

You don't really realize that these kinds of caricatures that you use, like also saying for example that Xbox would become third-party publishers, etc... these are the kinds of expressions which are then taken up by other media which result in disinformation.

You are well informed enough to know that this is false and that it is not that simple, it is simply part of a hybrid strategy which seems confusing to you from what I understand, but you are only adding confusion and darkness instead of bringing clarity.

You know very well that Xbox's main strategy is focused mainly on its own Xbox consoles, PC, mobile, the cloud, and platforms that have the gamepass.

The PlayStation and the Switch remain a small element of diversity in this hybrid strategy but in no way an end in themselves. (And ther is no gamepass on PS or switch as far as i know)

Besides, Xbox is the only one to have announced the next generation, which is a sign that they are not going to abandon the hardware. The simple fact that they continue to sign exclusive gaming contracts with third parties shows that it is important to keep a significant portion of exclusive games.

And it is! How can reality be so far from some people's perception of it? If not through caricature, lies, disinformation and false assumptions?

Nuance, balance! It's not all or nothing! Business is about balance, not a binary vision like some media can have!

This hybrid strategy is paying off, fortunately they don't bet everything on consoles, but that doesn't mean that they are abandoning the latter? Why would they continue to make regular updates for this last one in this case? Why bother creating a next generation? Why offer so many exclusive games, including with third-party publishers? It's simply that hardware, exclusive games are at the center of the strategy, as are gamepass, PC, cloud, mobile.

Balance! It is not 100% gamepass, 0% xbox console as the closed and fantasized vision of some would have you believe.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket, it's an essential principle in business. It’s not complicated to understand though!

 

[fjtorres5591]

@Jez Corden



How can we say "so aggressively", what objective arguments allow you to say that? Only 4 first party games have been ported to other platforms, and we are talking about 2 old service games from 5 and 8 years old and 2 small games which sold very little (pentement, hifi rush). Where is the aggression?

I am of course not talking about Indiana Jones which is a Disney license and historically multi-platform games.

Xbox has 3x more studios and 3x more exclusive licenses than Paystation, these few games sent to other consoles are a drop in the ocean! Where is the aggression? If you do the math correctly, Xbox has more exclusive games that have been released and will be released than PlayStation, it's a fact, I invite you to make the list! Where is the aggression?

With the strength of game development that Xbox has, I'm not shocked that some games are released on other platforms, when an Xbox game is released on another platform, 5 others are Xbox exclusive, not counting exclusive games from third party publishers like stalker 2, ark 2, 33 immortals, etc... Where is the aggression?

If you think that sending games as a pentiment or old service games that are already more than 5 years old is aggressive, it's not core Xbox fans we're talking about, but hardcore Xbox fans, which you I'm obviously part of using these kinds of terms.

Be careful with the terms you use, there are already enough anti-xbox trolls who enjoy spreading fake news and false assumptions, there's no point in adding to them with this kind of caricature.

You don't really realize that these kinds of caricatures that you use, like also saying for example that Xbox would become third-party publishers, etc... these are the kinds of expressions which are then taken up by other media which result in disinformation.

You are well informed enough to know that this is false and that it is not that simple, it is simply part of a hybrid strategy which seems confusing to you from what I understand, but you are only adding confusion and darkness instead of bringing clarity.

You know very well that Xbox's main strategy is focused mainly on its own Xbox consoles, PC, mobile, the cloud, and platforms that have the gamepass.

The PlayStation and the Switch remain a small element of diversity in this hybrid strategy but in no way an end in themselves. (And ther is no gamepass on PS or switch as far as i know)

Besides, Xbox is the only one to have announced the next generation, which is a sign that they are not going to abandon the hardware. The simple fact that they continue to sign exclusive gaming contracts with third parties shows that it is important to keep a significant portion of exclusive games.

And it is! How can reality be so far from some people's perception of it? If not through caricature, lies, disinformation and false assumptions?

Nuance, balance! It's not all or nothing! Business is about balance, not a binary vision like some media can have!

This hybrid strategy is paying off, fortunately they don't bet everything on consoles, but that doesn't mean that they are abandoning the latter? Why would they continue to make regular updates for this last one in this case? Why bother creating a next generation? Why offer so many exclusive games, including with third-party publishers? It's simply that hardware, exclusive games are at the center of the strategy, as are gamepass, PC, cloud, mobile.

Balance! It is not 100% gamepass, 0% xbox console as the closed and fantasized vision of some would have you believe.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket, it's an essential principle in business. It’s not complicated to understand though!

By the standards of Mr Corden, XBOX has always been multiplat: VIVA PIÑATA and BLUE DRAGON. More recently, Minecraft. By buying BETHESDA and ABK they've added dozens of multiplat franchises.

So realistically, what are they to do?
Pull back every active multiplat franchise? Give up on billions of dollars out of spute?
Yes, Sony did it with Spiderman and Disney let them, but Nadella isn't Ballmer and he understands that making money off alternate platforms is a good way to undercut competitors (since gamers don't have infinite budgets) especially with second/third tier games. As long as the porting costs are minimal, why leave money on the table?

Only a Sony ****** will see MS extracting money from said ******'s pocket as a sign of weakness instead of a classic business move; "What's mine is mine, what's yours is negotiable."

All the pearl clutching over MS "abandoning" the XBOX hardware platform conveniently forgets that the entire GamePass cloud business is built off XBOX hardware! Killing the XBOX hardware platform means giving up on the cloud gaming market. Is MS that stupid? Or are the Sony fanboys that nearsighted?

For that matter, would MS be giving NVIDIA access to the GamePass ecosystem if they were planning on using streaming PC games on their own?

Even if the next XBOX turns out to be a gaming PC in disguise (which it should) it still will need a baseline CPU/GPU/NPU configuration for developers to target for console-level plug and play. The disguise part.

The XBOX hardware platform is going nowhere and pretending otherwise is ignoring the realities of the market. Consoles are a tapped out market. Growth must come from PC, MOBILE, Cloud, and picking the pockets of other platform fans. Plus, the hardly negligible XBOX community as it stands. No single segment can support the existing studio system. Not even a combination of two or three. All are required. And in the age of the €1000/$800 console, Cloud , subscriptions, and multiplat are going to be increasingly important.
XBOX is simply ahead of the curve.
Just ask SQUARE-ENIX.

 

[fatpunkslim]

@fjtorres5591 Yes exactly,
Xbox hardware is part of a whole, important for gamepass, cloud, exclusive games, etc...

I come back to my notion of balance. Of course Xbox did well not to make historically multiplatform games exclusive (even if in practice some games have become exclusive like hellblade), Xbox has more than enough licenses to maintain the balance between profits from other platforms and the need to keep games exclusive, important for the attractiveness of consoles and even the Xbox ecosystem.

It is, among other things, thanks to this hybrid strategy that Xbox continues to innovate and create new licenses. You just have to look at PlayStation, which for too long has focused solely on everything exclusive and on consoles, a market in recession, to realize that this is not a good strategy:
- Financially they have not achieved their objectives and make less income than Xbox as confirmed by their latest financial report.
- Playstation is mainly content to make remakes or 1.5 sequels
- They create very few new games and new ips, no risk taken, they no longer innovate.
- They are forced to offer absurd prices (consoles, games, accessories, DLC, etc.) to cover their costs

Is this what we want as a player?

I think the majority of players can only say no to this prospect.

But even PlayStation understood this, a little late, and took the path of Xbox, releasing its games on PC and even Day One, and also on Nintendo switch and why not on xbox later.

The misfortune for PlayStation is that they have too few studios to create enough first party games and they rely too much on third party publishers for their exclusive games. The problem, as you point out, is that like Square Enix, most third-party publishers no longer want to develop for a single platform, it is no longer profitable, especially given the tension in the industry of video games and the simple fact that games are not sold enough on a single platform. Square Enix is not profitable on PlayStation, like other studios, that's why they are gradually losing all their exclusive games which are mainly made by third-party publishers.

The financial markets are not mistaken, the future of PlayStation is very uncertain and very unenviable, the sale of consoles is not a strategy in itself, it is no longer a criterion of success, there is no reason to want to follow the path of PlayStation, because in reality it is they who follow Xbox.

 

[Lurking_Lurker_Lurks]

I'm excited. I know there's a lot of frustration and confusion toward Xbox from some gamers, but I've never been more excited for the brand. They're poised to create the first ubiquitous gaming ecosystem and platform. Xbox is now moving toward becoming what I think it always should have been. Microsoft isn't Sony or Nintendo and never should have tried to be. They're the only ones in the room who control both the largest gaming PC OS platform and a console platform and should act like it. They really must be kicking themselves so bad for killing the windows phone with mobile being such a major gaming platform now.

I don't think exclusives were ever going to work for Xbox to begin with because they haven't worked for any console. We should face the facts. Console sales peaked with the PS2 nearly 2 decades ago now, and they're only just now starting to be topped by the Nintendo Switch which rocks weaker hardware than last gen. No console has really been able to penetrate general audiences and super casuals (like Mobile gamers). And convert them. Consoles have barely even managed to steal users from each other.

For the 25th anniversary I want to see Microsoft break away from following do their own thing. Which in my opinion should be 1:1 windows PC and Xbox development so every game is Xbox Play Anywhere. Don't abandon the console but expand beyond it while celebrating it. Create a ubiquitous ecosystem with cloud gaming, handheld, high end console, mobile store, and improving pc gaming on windows. Make it so that at the center is the Xbox gamer who's library follows them with cloud saves. Dominate in a way unique to Microsoft and Xbox.

Now Halo, oh boy. Yeah as a Halo lover, I'm concerned. Very very concern. Microsoft needs to start doing right by the game that is intrinsically linked to Xbox.

 

[fjtorres5591]

No console has really been able to penetrate general audiences and super casuals (like Mobile gamers). And convert them. Consoles have barely even managed to steal users from each other.

Consoles can't draw customers from each other because anybody with a console is either new to gaming or literally invested ($$$) into one ecosystem. The days of switching platforms ended ten years ago. $500 consoles and $70 games killed that.

And XBOX *is* doing its thing; that's what GAME PASS, SERIES S, and cloud gaming are about: bringing the cost of gaming down to the masses.

The problem is the pixel pimpers in the gaming media and Series S libel among developers have blunted the appeal of the only console that can run current gen games for under $300, which is the traditional console entry-level.

Between the "XBOX tax", the MS haters, and the "MS doesn't own me" types in the media, the message of SS + Gamepass gets blunted, to Sony's benefit. Add Sony paying japanese developers not-to-develop for XBOX at all and newcomers to gaming are told they must either pay $500+ to game or do without.

And most do without.

So here we are, with studios closing, fabled exclusives underperforming, and gaming media pundits whistling past the graveyard unwillling to admit they are part of the problem. For all the focus on the things "XBOX does wrong", most of which aren't, MS is still playing the long game and slowly watching their plan come together. Later than it should have on a,level playing field, but inevitably so.

 

[Jez Corden]

@Jez Corden



How can we say "so aggressively", what objective arguments allow you to say that? Only 4 first party games have been ported to other platforms, and we are talking about 2 old service games from 5 and 8 years old and 2 small games which sold very little (pentement, hifi rush). Where is the aggression?

I am of course not talking about Indiana Jones which is a Disney license and historically multi-platform games.

Xbox has 3x more studios and 3x more exclusive licenses than Paystation, these few games sent to other consoles are a drop in the ocean! Where is the aggression? If you do the math correctly, Xbox has more exclusive games that have been released and will be released than PlayStation, it's a fact, I invite you to make the list! Where is the aggression?

With the strength of game development that Xbox has, I'm not shocked that some games are released on other platforms, when an Xbox game is released on another platform, 5 others are Xbox exclusive, not counting exclusive games from third party publishers like stalker 2, ark 2, 33 immortals, etc... Where is the aggression?

If you think that sending games as a pentiment or old service games that are already more than 5 years old is aggressive, it's not core Xbox fans we're talking about, but hardcore Xbox fans, which you I'm obviously part of using these kinds of terms.

Be careful with the terms you use, there are already enough anti-xbox trolls who enjoy spreading fake news and false assumptions, there's no point in adding to them with this kind of caricature.

You don't really realize that these kinds of caricatures that you use, like also saying for example that Xbox would become third-party publishers, etc... these are the kinds of expressions which are then taken up by other media which result in disinformation.

You are well informed enough to know that this is false and that it is not that simple, it is simply part of a hybrid strategy which seems confusing to you from what I understand, but you are only adding confusion and darkness instead of bringing clarity.

You know very well that Xbox's main strategy is focused mainly on its own Xbox consoles, PC, mobile, the cloud, and platforms that have the gamepass.

The PlayStation and the Switch remain a small element of diversity in this hybrid strategy but in no way an end in themselves. (And ther is no gamepass on PS or switch as far as i know)

Besides, Xbox is the only one to have announced the next generation, which is a sign that they are not going to abandon the hardware. The simple fact that they continue to sign exclusive gaming contracts with third parties shows that it is important to keep a significant portion of exclusive games.

And it is! How can reality be so far from some people's perception of it? If not through caricature, lies, disinformation and false assumptions?

Nuance, balance! It's not all or nothing! Business is about balance, not a binary vision like some media can have!

This hybrid strategy is paying off, fortunately they don't bet everything on consoles, but that doesn't mean that they are abandoning the latter? Why would they continue to make regular updates for this last one in this case? Why bother creating a next generation? Why offer so many exclusive games, including with third-party publishers? It's simply that hardware, exclusive games are at the center of the strategy, as are gamepass, PC, cloud, mobile.

Balance! It is not 100% gamepass, 0% xbox console as the closed and fantasized vision of some would have you believe.

Don't put all your eggs in one basket, it's an essential principle in business. It’s not complicated to understand though!

part of it is me knowing things that aren't public yet tbh. at least things they're "considering." also compared to sony and Nintendo it's "aggressive."

personally I dont care at all. put the entire slate on ps5. i agree that xbox shouldn't put all their eggs in one basket, but the way they've handled this is exactly why there's so much misinfo flying around. go to tiktok or youtube reels and search Xbox, there's plenty of people there claiming xbox has exited the console market with millions of views.

i agree with you though like, we're on the same page ultimately.

 

[Jez Corden]

I'm excited. I know there's a lot of frustration and confusion toward Xbox from some gamers, but I've never been more excited for the brand. They're poised to create the first ubiquitous gaming ecosystem and platform. Xbox is now moving toward becoming what I think it always should have been. Microsoft isn't Sony or Nintendo and never should have tried to be. They're the only ones in the room who control both the largest gaming PC OS platform and a console platform and should act like it. They really must be kicking themselves so bad for killing the windows phone with mobile being such a major gaming platform now.

I don't think exclusives were ever going to work for Xbox to begin with because they haven't worked for any console. We should face the facts. Console sales peaked with the PS2 nearly 2 decades ago now, and they're only just now starting to be topped by the Nintendo Switch which rocks weaker hardware than last gen. No console has really been able to penetrate general audiences and super casuals (like Mobile gamers). And convert them. Consoles have barely even managed to steal users from each other.

For the 25th anniversary I want to see Microsoft break away from following do their own thing. Which in my opinion should be 1:1 windows PC and Xbox development so every game is Xbox Play Anywhere. Don't abandon the console but expand beyond it while celebrating it. Create a ubiquitous ecosystem with cloud gaming, handheld, high end console, mobile store, and improving pc gaming on windows. Make it so that at the center is the Xbox gamer who's library follows them with cloud saves. Dominate in a way unique to Microsoft and Xbox.

Now Halo, oh boy. Yeah as a Halo lover, I'm concerned. Very very concern. Microsoft needs to start doing right by the game that is intrinsically linked to Xbox.

im also excited based on what im researching rn. i think xbox will converge with windows very hard next-gen, and it'll open up more possibilities than ever, both for the platform and hardware options. im really excited for that handheld.

console sales have peaked, and peaked hard. but I dont want to see xbox sacrifice what it has at present, is all. i think they could do more for existing users.

 

[Jez Corden]

So here we are, with studios closing, fabled exclusives underperforming, and gaming media pundits whistling past the graveyard unwillling to admit they are part of the problem. For all the focus on the things "XBOX does wrong", most of which aren't, MS is still playing the long game and slowly watching their plan come together. Later than it should have on a,level playing field, but inevitably so.

agree 100%