The New Direction of Xbox

There is too much going on at Xbox to predict what’ll ultimately happen to the brand. It will never return to its peaks during the Xbox 360 era, at least in the way it had been. And Asha Sharma, while yet another “friendly” Xbox face, has yet to bring us to the entire vision for the brand. It is hard to speak about any positive changes without looking at the massive and continuing layoffs as well. At its best, it does seem to be the necessary “reset” that Sharma assumes, for long-term growth. The mistakes are paid for, however, at the expense of our precious developers.

The Core Experience

But looking past that, it seems that the key points are being improved on. Nearly weekly improvements with the console’s software, a higher degree of feedback, and a bigger focus on franchises. Also, a focus back on the core user that is the traditional gamer that grew up with the brand. Best of all too–the improvements are coming at a rapid pace. What we can anticipate, is that Xbox will return to growth in a way that does respect the Xbox fan. It’s more about the trade-offs and untreaded ground, that will be interesting to adjust to.

An Unhealthy Business

Before Asha Sharma had been Phil Spencer, a gamer that had a passion for the industry. As top dog at Xbox, many of his decisions brought a few great features, but also long-term damage. This is not to say he was incompetent, yet Xbox was definitely not in a healthy place. A lot of the failures were due to Game Pass, going away from exclusives, and an inability to adapt. That last point is what most business leaders in the gaming industry are suffering from.

To make things worse, AI has made hardware more difficult and expensive to manufacture: aptly named the “RAMpocalypse.” Game development is now lengthier, riskier and more expensive. Gaming as a whole is growing, but in a direction unfamiliar to the traditional structure. The biggest games are live-service or online games with indefinite support. The business model changed with even more DLCs and microtransactions. All of which caused business leaders to think that this was the way to profit. The biggest bet being Xbox’s investment into their subscriptions, including Game Pass.

The Failures of Game Pass

Xbox went too far, buying up large and small studios without a plan for quick production. It went so poorly that after the initial acquisitions, it resulted in Asha Sharma doing further layoffs and cutting studios. And these aren’t no-name studios either: Ninja Theory, Double Fine, Undead Labs, and Compulsion Games. These studios are responsible for games like Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, State of Decay, South of Midnight, We Happy Few, Brutal Legend and Psychonauts.

There are also cuts to studios that are currently under Microsoft. Role eliminations at id Software, the developers of the critically acclaimed modern Doom games—left to just a skeleton crew. Halo Studios, having just released Halo: Campaign Evolved, has been decimated to just a handful of people. The Halo franchise then being handed off to another developer. Layoffs don’t only mean that studios could be shut down, but that their team shrinks to the point that they may never produce games at the same level ever again.

Layoffs Continue

And to top it off, the additional layoffs within the same announcement amount to 3,200. Only half of those roles are eliminated immediately, the rest to be done later. The harshness of the delayed execution cannot be understated, with even Reggie Fils-Aime commenting on that approach as a red flag. Former Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata felt similarly, refusing to do layoffs even when the company was at its worst moments:

“If we reduce the number of employees for better short-term financial results, however, employee morale will decrease, and I sincerely doubt employees who fear that they may be laid off will be able to develop software titles that could impress people around the world.”

Sharma’s decision with the continuing layoffs will prove to be a big mistake for Xbox in the near future. Developers under the brand are still in fear of losing their jobs. This is a loss that will be felt for years to come, as necessary as it may seem. This resetting of Xbox is a big sign of how unhealthy the business has been for Microsoft. It is questionable if this really is the way to do that.

Getting More Content

It is no secret that fans have been starving, absolutely thirsting for new entries of beloved franchises. Franchises that make up the identity of Xbox, back when the original console launched and where the brand is today. We want a new Fable, a new Halo, more Fallout, more Elder Scrolls, and Gear of War too. After several years, we are just now getting new titles. The new Fable is yet to come next year, Gears of War just came back with E-Day, and Halo returned with simply another take of the original. Fallout? Elder Scrolls? Likely, multiple years away before a new release aside from yet another remaster coming from Bethesda. At least fans got a new Forza Horizon game earlier this year to great reception. Though that’s also coming to PlayStation. But I digress–how is this problem being solved?

Along with the layoffs, Asha Sharma has voiced a focus back on these key franchises. Not only games, but eventual tv shows or movies too. The recent Fallout show has proven this can help to get the games more attention.

The First Step for Franchises

The first move made was to declare Gears of War: E-Day as a console exclusive, absent on PlayStation. After that, her promise about improved communication with the community indirectly led to Todd Howard announcing important development updates. He officially confirmed that Elder Scrolls 6 is in fully active development, that famed Fallout: New Vegas developer Obsidian Entertainment was working on a new Fallout themselves—and that New Vegas And Fallout 3 were getting remasters. That’s a lot of new content, coming at us quick.

The Future of Halo

Another important change, probably the most crucial: Halo is now being handled by Activision. Development will be faster, since the production will no longer be plagued by the previous manager of the franchise that was so stubborn to use only contractors and spend so much time and resources to have Halo move over to Unreal Engine. If Activision is known for anything, it is for being able to get games done in an orderly and speedy fashion as evident with the Call of Duty series. We don’t know how the new Halo will look: we don’t know what team will work on it, what engine it’ll use and how pressured the development environment will be. But one thing is for sure: we’ll get a new Halo game that isn’t stuck in production hell. Hopefully, Halo’s image isn’t damaged any further and can actually return to growth.

An Xbox franchise that Came Back

The new Fable game is an interesting title. It is being developed by the same studio behind the Forza Horizon series, even using the same engine. It’s looking to be a great entry, with a demo already playable at events and videos detailing several features. The series may have waned over the years, but being developed by a prestigious studio willing to show us the goods, is certainly reassuring.

Going Beyond the Consoles

These updates indicate that we’re getting core content sooner rather than later. This includes old series like Gears of War and new IPs such as Clockwork Revolution. Continuing games are also getting a push. Asha Sharma announced that Minecraft and Candy Crush will report directly to her. While this is not exclusive to Microsoft’s console business, it does refer to its role as a publisher at large. And even if some games hit other platforms, these are still part of Xbox as a whole–which does bring up the new direction it’s going in. This is the message it seems to give us: “Xbox will give consoles its value and identity, yet continue its larger goals.” Those larger goals being as a publisher and gaming ecosystem with Windows.

Cloud gaming is also a part of the bigger picture. Getting more gameplay experiences onto phones and making content even more accessible than ever. PC is becoming a bigger focal point too, with Microsoft improving their storefront to become a better competitor with Steam. To be more accessible means to be affordable too, another point that Sharma hopes to address.

While the consoles are slowly making their comeback, everyone else is being included as part of “Xbox”; different from when it was only about the subsidized hardware. Microsoft didn’t go through all that work just to backtrack to an audience that seldom grows–after all, E-Day was a console exclusive and still ended up on PC. Though, that may speak to Microsoft understanding that Sony has overall won that audience over. You got to do what you can, where you can, rather than betting on a trend that will inevitably change.

Delivering on Promises

What brings confidence to the current direction of the brand is that new communication. Yes, there are several initiatives to keep up with–but they are clearer than they were before. It is direct information coming at us: more content, core user focus, expanding ecosystem and an improvement on quality. Xbox has delivered on a few of those things: exclusivity coming back, several new titles being announced and nearly weekly updates on software. Some of these changes are big too, straight up headliners: “Disc-to-Digital,” “Mythic Achievements,” and “Xbox backwards compatibility on PC” are a few examples. Fans are coming back and getting more excited about playing games, because simply because playing them has become easier and more appealing. These things happened so quickly and efficiently that it begs the question: What the hell was stopping them from doing this before?

The Greater Xbox Ecosystem

What is the bigger picture here? What will become of Xbox in the not-so-near future? The new console-PC hybrid, Project Helix is one part of that, and then the Windows ecosystem is the other. Considering that Windows is the way to play for cloud gaming, PC handhelds, Xbox PC and eventually Helix itself–that is the area of interest for Microsoft. It has been a complaint for several users that Windows needs work, and that its quality is the only thing holding people back from using it more.

The north star for Xbox is the software experience, all of which include performance, accessibility and user interface. For the “PC” part of Helix, this is going to be increasingly relevant, that will define how successful the platform will be. Because the target audience is no longer people who exclusively purchase consoles or those who like single-player games, or even the hardcore gamers who want the best performing games on a beefy PC–the audience is now absolutely everyone.

Engaging with Xbox

Xbox LABS, backwards compatibility, ASUS partner devices, Xbox XP, Xbox Play Anywhere, Xbox PC app, movies and tv: all initiatives aimed for the goal of people to simply engage, softly coaxing them to play in any way they can. I can already see what the experience will look like. A person who likes playing Candy Crush on their phone as the total gaming they ever do, seeing an advertisement or offer for a Game Pass subscription. After signing up, they boot up the cloud gaming browser and play a key franchise title with improved network speeds and lowered latency. It is their first time ever playing a single-player narrative experience.

They enjoy the game and decide to play more, probably streaming to their TV or laptop for a better experience. Then “screw it,” they buy a console or upgrade their PC for gaming. They buy digital titles or buy discs and claim the digital license for them. As Sony makes yet another arrogant mistake while they are on top of the world, the new fan criticizes them and blurts out “Xbox wouldn’t do that.” And saying that is like a rite of passage: they identify as an “Xbox fan,” fully integrated now onto the ecosystem.

The Perfect Console Experience

It is an equally fulfilling future for established fans too. They’ll open up their consoles daily, looking forward to the next console exclusive and adding them to the wish list. There will be yet another update to the UI, either something convenient like using poster images for games, or a larger feature being added like remote play being able to play up to 4k resolution. Then a game is booted up on Quick Resume, perhaps the new single-player game or a new entry of Halo that has weekly events going on. New friends join in the party and comment in voice chat. More games to digest and more features to tinker with. Everyday has something to look forward to, to keep up with, that isn’t “more bad Xbox news.”

What It Means to Play on Xbox

The cool thing about this is that we don’t know what it’ll actually look like–there’s likely a great new addition that we don’t know is a great idea until Project Helix is officially unveiled. Optimistic, yes, but now truly feasible unlike before. Some fans may miss the old days when Xbox cut off its content from other platforms, stuck to gaming without apps, and really focused on exclusive experiences. But in this future, hopefully, there will be more people to play with even if it doesn’t feel like before in the analog days. The core experience will remain, and the difference will be that more users get to be a part of it too.

Frankly, for several years, it has been the same people buying consoles, the same people buying single-player games, and the same people buying discs. What is the pitch, what are the options for those who didn’t grow up gaming or never got into it in the first place? This is the new direction of the Xbox brand, inferred by one its features: “Play Xbox anywhere.” Engaging in any way with Xbox, will be what makes an Xbox fan.