Is Anyone Really Surprised?

Now that the official Xbox account on X has confirmed that ‘The biggest games will be more than just one platform’, I have to repeat what I’ve been saying for a long time: is anyone really surprised? Microsoft might make videogames and consoles but they’re not a videogame company, they’re a computer softeware company; they don’t have a reliance on videogames. On top of that, Xbox has pursued a model that will necessarily mean that less videogames will be sold on their platform, specifically the subscription focused model that they have with gamepass. Now, if Microsoft are a business and they can see that a division (Xbox) in their business isn’t making as much profit as it could they have 2 options available to them: either they invest a lot more time (and probably money) into making that division an irresistibly attractive prospect to customers, or they can take the easier, faster and cheaper option of making games available on more platforms.

In other words, Xbox is basically the anti-Nintendo.

Nintendo is a videogames company, both hardware and software. Although they have recently starting exploring different ways of making money – successfully too – but Nintendo is reliant on their games not just because it is their main source of revenue, but also because that is what they are known as. They can’t fall back onto another product that customers will immediately associate with the Nintendo brand. Nintendo’s approach has also been very different to Microsoft. Where as Xbox has effectively moved to buying outside talent to bolster their catalogue of games, Nintendo actively avoids purchases of third-party properties and other companies. And, although Nintendo are more than happy to ride the litigation tiger if you so much a breath the air within three feet of their intellectual properties, more than anything Nintendo has taken the stance that they will sell games by making the best of them.

Looking at it like that, with such a sharp contrast, it’s not wonder that Microsoft are walking down the path to lesser and lesser stake in consoles. For them it makes sense, but I don’t think it’s an approach that’s good for videogame fans.

Playing videogames, writing about videogames, considering videogames—that about sums it up. Videogames are the one hobby that I’ve kept since I was only little, zapping ducks on the NES or knocking out MR. X. And when I’m not enjoying classics from the bit generation of games or checking out those earliest of polygons, I’m probably playing something from today’s age of modern gaming: if I’m not complaining about it. Something I’m doing at the moment? Returning to Triangle Strategy to see some of the other endings.