It is understood the “majority” of Xbox games will eventually be coming to PlayStation.
That’s according to Chris Dring from Eurogamer’s sister site GamesIndustry.biz. Speaking on the GI Microcast, Dring said his takeaway from GDC was that “Xbox is in real trouble as a hardware manufacturer”. Sources who spoke to Dring during the conference last week said that “Xbox’s performance in Europe is just flatlining”, and some publishers were now expressing concerns about supporting the console.
“The phrase one major company who released a big game last year said [was], ‘I don’t know why we bothered supporting it’,” Dring shared. “We mentioned on a previous podcast that we’d heard retailers in Europe are considering or had already been cutting back their Xbox stock on their shelves – hardware, games, that kind of thing – and now you’ve got third-party publishers going, ‘we’re putting in a lot of effort trying to create a Series S version and an X version of a game when, to be honest with you, for us the market is PC and PS5’.”
Dring went on to reference Xbox’s recent move of adding its once console exclusive games to additional platforms. He understands “the majority” of Xbox games will eventually come to more platforms “assuming it progresses as Xbox believes it probably will”.
Continuing his thoughts on Xbox’s hardware and business plan, Dring said he had “always just been of the belief of ‘oh, it’s the Game Pass delivery system, it’s got a good UI, it’s got a good controller. You know, if you like Xbox games it’s probably the best way to play them etc.
“I thought it would be fine, but then I didn’t really factor in that some developers and publishers might just go, ‘yeah I don’t, you know, is there any point?’ And that is when you can lose it. And they are talking about releasing more powerful hardware in the next generations of devices, but they need to make sure that it makes sense for studios to continue to make versions of their games for that system.
“Another thing I kept hearing at GDC was ‘what the hell is going on with Xbox, because of course from an Xbox perspective it’s all about growing the market through other platforms and services and stuff. It’s not all about the box under the TV, and in fact, the box under the TV is probably a very small part of their business. But from their partner’s perspective, it’s a key element.”
Following these words, GamesIndustry.biz editor-in-chief James Batchelor added that if developers are unconvinced they are going to see a return on their game sales on Xbox due to the smaller player base, then of course “they are going to focus” on other platforms.
Elsewhere in the conversation, Dring also touched on the specs for the PlayStation 5 ‘Pro’, which leaked earlier this month, admitting he “I didn’t meet a single person that understood the point of it” when he was at GDC.
“Obviously PlayStation 5 fans, they will upgrade… It benefits Sony. [But] developers didn’t really seem to feel they needed it, at least the ones I spoke to.” He added that companies were aware that any respecced PlayStation 5 console “isn’t going to move the market needle”.