How Far Can Backwards Compatibility And Game Pass Carry Microsoft?
The Xbox One was an unmitigated disaster for Microsoft. Coming on the heels of the Xbox 360, which came out of the gate hot and for much of its generation was the leading console of its generation, Microsoft had a chance to grow its market. Instead, it alienated players with bad decision after bad decision. While many of those issues were eventually walked back, it had left a bad taste in the community’s mouth, and their share of the market never really recovered.
It didn’t help that Microsoft continually struggled to put out high-quality games on the system either. Players will forgive a lot if you have great titles to attract them, but game after game disappointed while other anticipated titles were simply canceled outright. There was little need for the average player to pick up Microsoft’s console despite a few gems here and there. Even many of those eventually ended up on other platforms.
To their credit, Microsoft seemed to realize this was a problem. The company spent the latter half of the Xbox One’s life really working to turn things around with great policies around backward compatibility while also building Game Pass into perhaps the best value in video games. While they’d struggled to build strong internal studios, they decided they could buy outside studios to bolster their lineup. Developers, including Ninja Theory, Bethesda, Playground Games, Obsidian, Double Fine, InXile, and Undead Labs, were all added to Microsoft Studios for an awful lot of money, and many assumed that would turn Microsoft’s fortunes around. The promise of acquiring Activision looked like another sure shot in the arm, though now there are more questions than answers when it comes to whether they’ll even be able to complete that purchase.
For a minute, it even looked like it had worked. After a slow start, 2021 was a banner year for the Xbox Series X. Psychonauts 2 lived up to expectations, Forza Horizon 5 was perhaps the best game in the series yet, and Halo Infinite launched with an excellent core that remains a ton of fun to play today, even if it wasn’t as complete as we’d have liked to see it. All three games made our top 12 games of the year, and we stand behind that. They’re excellent games that anyone with an Xbox should play.
If it looked like things were heading upward for the Series X, though, 2022 proved that, at best, it wouldn’t be a smooth climb. Pentiment and As Dusk Falls are both excellent games, but they’re also rather niche experiences and aren’t going to draw a larger audience. Grounded has its fans, though the fact that it had been readily available in Early Access for years made it feel less new. Most of Microsoft’s biggest games, though, from Forza Motorsport to Redfall, and the biggest one in Starfield, were pushed into 2023. Which we get, COVID has had a massive impact on game development across the industry. Still, while Game Pass is excellent as simply an extensive library of interesting old games you can check out at your leisure, the biggest appeal of it for most is that day one $70.00 games are available on it. And for nearly a year and a half now, we simply haven’t gotten any of those. 2023 started much the same with another cool niche lower-cost game in Hi-Fi Rush, but no major games, as even the 2022 games that were pushed to early 2023 have again been pushed to late 2023.
Redfall was supposed to be the first game in a long time that felt like a full AAA experience on the console, but it launched in an awful state. It clearly wasn’t ready for release, but Microsoft may have ultimately determined they simply couldn’t afford yet another delay, or perhaps even decided that it wasn’t worth throwing more good money after bad, and this just wasn’t fixable.
Where does that leave the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S as we move into the second half of 2023, though? Halo Infinite was supposed to represent a decade’s worth of the franchise, with constant updates promised, but while the core game is excellent, Microsoft simply hasn’t been able to keep the content coming. Likewise, we’ve heard nothing official about what’s next for Gears. The only other first-party games currently announced for the second half of 2023 are Forza Motorsport and Starfield, both of which are carrying more pressure than ever after the failure of Redfall.
Microsoft seemingly has a ton of games in development, but where are they? In an effort to show off the future and calm concerns about a lack of games, Microsoft showed off a ton of interesting-looking titles several years ago. Games like Avowed, Everwild, Hellblade II, The Outer Worlds 2, Perfect Dark, Fable, and Contraband, but where are these games? We haven’t heard anything on most of them in years, and even then, we saw little more than teaser trailers. Are any of them set to release in 2023 or even early 2024? We may hear more about at least a few of them from Microsoft’s briefing next month, but after recent events, it’s hard to remain optimistic.
As sales continue to slow for the Xbox Series consoles, Microsoft has to figure out a solution. Backwards compatibility and Game Pass are great tools to fill the time between major releases, but they aren’t a substitute for those releases. These consoles desperately need games that will get people excited. Otherwise, this generation isn’t going to end any better than the last.
