With new Halo, Gears Of War, and Forza games out this year, a reader questions whether Xbox has the right franchises to further its multiformat ambitions.
If it involved any company other than Microsoft, I’d feel bad about having a dig at Xbox. But as things are, I have no problem saying that the entire organisation is a shambles and their overall effect on the games industry is a negative one. They were briefly influential with the Xbox 360 but ever since then they’ve been trying to drag everyone else down with them, just because they keep making dumb decisions that any other person would’ve avoided.
But all that stuff has been talked to death before and I don’t want to go over old ground. What inspired me to write was the news that both The Outer Worlds 2 and Avowed were flops for Xbox and Obsidian last year. I’m not surprised, I wasn’t impressed by either of them, but it made me think how few big sellers Xbox has to show for itself after 25 years in the business.
Forza Horizon is easily the biggest thing they’ve got right now, which is tragic given they’ve also got Halo and Gears Of War games coming out this year and yet I can guarantee they won’t sell either. And as for Fable and the others, I don’t think they have a chance, which is a bit of a problem if Xbox is essentially out of the console business now.
As far as I understand you’ve got Halo: Campaign Evolved out this summer, then Fable and Gears Of War: E-Day sometime in the autumn. Now, Halo might do relatively well because PlayStation owners may be curious to see what the fuss is about. I don’t know how impressed they’re going to be by such an old game though and I can see the novelty being very short-lived.
Xbox ran Halo into the ground years ago and I assume this single-player remake is a prelude to releasing another free multiplayer game, which they wouldn’t have needed to do if they hadn’t already messed up the one in Halo Infinite, which wasn’t that long ago even.
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Gears Of War has already gone multiformat with last year’s remaster and it went completely ignored by everyone, including PlayStation owners. As a prequel, E-Day is going to try and go all out on nostalgia, but nobody but Xbox owners have nostalgia for the games and even then they’ve made it plain they lost interest a while ago, considering the last game ended on a cliffhanger that now is never going to get a sequel.
Then there’s Fable, which PlayStation owners are going to be even less familiar with. I was interested in this one, since it’s the developers of Forza Horizon, but that last trailer was not very encouraging. It looks like a generic action role-player but without any kind of hook. Even all the English comedians that are supposed to be in it never said anything funny.
Maybe I’m being too down because, as you might guess, I’m an old school Xbox owner and can play all these games on Game Pass. But I very much doubt I’ll renew again when it runs out, as I’ve had it with the console.
If I get a PlayStation 5 instead I can always pick up Forza Horizon, or anything else that turns out to be good, and not feel I’m missing out. So, I suppose Microsoft will make some money there, but I think they’ll need a bit more than that for it all to be worth it.
Looking at the rest of their announced games, I’ve forgotten what Clockwork Revolution even was and have no interest in State Of Decay 3, as it’ll just turn out to be another buggy mess like the other two. I just don’t think Xbox knows how to nurture developers, not the way Sony and Nintendo do, and any hit they get seems to be despite them, not because of them.
Maybe I am bitter, but I really don’t think Xbox can survive without a healthy console business. It’ll have to do without me though and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
By reader Crusten
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