2022 was a mediocre year on Xbox to say the least. There are many indications that the Xbox Series X/S, just like in 2021, was beaten by the PS5 with a ratio of 2:1 in the North American market. Not a single major exclusive game was launched, and Xbox was thus noticeably absent when The Game Awards honored the year’s games and achievements in December.
2023 promised to be a significantly better year. But the signals we get from many games in development, if we get any at all, are almost exclusively negative. Perfect Dark is said to have hit “a bump in the road or two” and is about a year behind the next Tomb Raider, according to insider sources.
I like Phil Spencer. But my problem with him and Xbox at the moment is that they’ve been running that “next year…!” rhetoric ever since Microsoft opened its wallet and started buying up game studios in 2018. We’ve been promised a lot and told to be patient. Games take time to develop. Yes, we have understood that. So we have been waiting. And waited.
The problem during the Xbox One years wasn’t that there weren’t any exclusive games released. It did (although they were too few). The problem was that the vast majority did not measure up. Halo 5 was good, but handling the Master Chief was a real headache. ReCore was promising but ended up being nothing more than mediocre. Sunset Overdrive I never came to terms with despite several attempts. And Quantum Break was a game that would fit into Microsoft’s TV-TV-TV vision but felt rather odd when that vision fell apart.
In the new generation, the games would be more and the quality higher. Long before the Xbox Series X was announced, Microsoft had started buying up studios. The acquisition of Ninja Theory, InXile, Undead Labs, Playground and Compulsion Games along with the formation of the all new The Initiative was revealed at E3 2018. To much fanfare.
The future looked so bright. But it’s been almost five years, and not a single game has seen the light of day yet. We have not received a release date. We don’t even know what year the next game will be released from these developers.
I haven’t had any worries in the past, and Game Pass has kept me happy for a long time. But the overall picture right now is actually a bit worrying. The games are not coming and the signals are not positive. Microsoft doesn’t seem to be managing its newly acquired studios very well. Maybe not their older studios either, because when the prestigious mission of being in charge of Halo doesn’t succeed at all under the leadership of 343 Industries, something is very wrong. It’s a bit like Nintendo is going to fail with its new Super Mario. It just can’t happen. Owning many game studios means nothing if you can’t manage them properly.
My feeling is that 2023 will be the most important year for Xbox in a very long time. This is when the games have to start coming, and not only that. They must deliver. In short, it is up to the evidence.
