“The audience for those big story-driven games... I won’t say it isn’t as large, but they’re not as consistent. You’ll have things like Zelda or Horizon Zero Dawn that’ll come out, and they’ll do really well, but they don’t have the same impact that they used to have, because the big service-based games are capturing such a large amount of the audience. Sony’s first-party studios do a lot of these games, and they’re good at them, but outside of that, it’s difficult – they’re become more rare; it’s a difficult business decision for those teams, you’re fighting into more headwind."

How did Zelda and Horizon not have the same impact "they used to have"? In the last few months both games have been the talk of the industry. Looking at the charts and critic scores both did excellent. Is selling 2.6 million in a few weeks not enough anymore? Is he just throwing shade because MS didn't have anything as "impactful" recently?

This comes right after talks about them being interested in games as a service model.

Do you think MS is gonna abandon singleplayer games? Imo I think we should be worried with the way they're seeing games now, if something selling 2.6M units not impactful enough anymore, and them talking how they see Destiny as a model, it seems they only want mega hits selling closer to what Destiny does and support it with title updates for a long time.

He was congratulating his competition with successful game launches since Bloodborne, making me hopeful he was getting inspired by them to do something similar on Xbox, but now just before E3 to hear these words... :/

Well if they abandon SP games, then I abandon them.

Single player story driven games don't have the same impact, I guess. Not particularly Zelda or Horizon. Those two have done great numbers but how many great games haven't?

Of course, this line of thought isn't new. Last gen, people thought single player games were going extinct. That wasn't the case and that'll never be the case. I think, as long as developers make the games that they want to make, there will always be something for everyone.

With an attitude like that it's only a matter of time before Xbox is dead.

Doesn't suprise me from the head of xbox. Its why the xbox brand keeps dropping since mid last gen.

The "impact" he's talking about is money.

EA makes over half a billion dollars a year just on selling player cards for their sports games. Revenue like that is almost all profit and boosts the value of those franchises. What he's saying is, that kind of success is very attractive for a publisher.

Does that mean single player games are going away? No, but it does mean they're less of a priority than previously.

In my book Microsoft put Scalebound in development hell by forcing multiplayer, they also killed the Fable series for the same reason.

And they are now taking away Rare's uniqueness by forcing them to make an online multiplayer game.

I wouldn't be surprised if the quality of the campaign of the next Halo is even lower that the last one is favor of, once again: Multiplayer.

With an attitude like that it's only a matter of time before Xbox is dead.

He has a tendency to launch into monologues where there appears to be little filter between his thoughts and his mouth, which I've felt in the past lead to him saying things that he really hadn't fully fleshed out.

I hope that's what happened here... he referenced two GOTY contenders and amazing experiences in Zelda BotW and Horizon ZD, and then somehow made it sound as if they're not something he's particularly interested in providing.

I think when he said "but they don’t have the same impact that they used to have, because the big service-based games are capturing such a large amount of the audience" he was referring more to the financial long term impact for the devs than the impact on the players and creative impact on the industry itself, but that's precisely the sort of thing "gamers" aren't interested in.

Sure, those service-based games that involve subscriptions and microtransactions make an enormous amount of money over time, but those aren't the games people base their console selections on. People see Horizon and are glad they already have a PS4 or feel motivated to get the Pro to see those beautiful graphics. We've already seen that Zelda has almost single-handedly turned Nintendo from a Company many thought would be forced out of the console market to suddenly a console that people are actually optimistic about, with launch sales that surpass any previous console of theirs.

He's not wrong in his observation regarding profits for the developers, but he's absolutely focused on the wrong thing when it comes to winning gamers back; really, it's a little perplexing, and that's why I think this was one of those "not fully thought out" observations that he sorta just blurted out while rambling.

Microsoft are worrying me. This year's E3 is their last chance of convincing me that I shoud still support them.