Don’t forget to watch the state of play :) Will probably get a lot of updates about games coming to Xbox ;)

Welp, Nintendo beat Sony with their show that's for sure. Hoping that Tales dlc isn't exclusive, you never know...

If Phil can manage to get FF7 remake at TGS and then apparently FF7 rebirth has a 3 month exclusivity (LOL), maybe.. with this new ceo... make it happen Phil. SE needs all the help it can get.

With the new CEO and Xbox's mended relationship with Square Enix, plus FFXIV finally coming, I do think that there's a higher chance than ever of Final Fantasy returning to Xbox.

This is shorter than Sony's usual money-hats, I do wonder if the new CEO had something to do with that.

So FF7R2 is only Sony exclusive for 3 months this time, get the feeling that Square used some clause to shorten the original deal, because it's hard to believe that Sony would only settle for 3 months when FF7R1 has been Sony console exclusive for 3 years, and FF16 is Sony console exclusive for 1 year, no way Sony would have only went for a 3 month deal I think.

These exclusivity deals are costing Square big time, today we learned that FF7R1 is at 7m after 3+ years. FF15, which was multiplat, hit 7m in 15 months by comparison. FF7R1's legs have been quite poor, the game was at 5m 3 months after release, which means it has only sold 2m copies in the 3 years since they gave us the 5m figure in August 2020, and that 2m sales in 3 years includes a late PS5 port with DLC included, FF7R Intergrade, and the late PC port (which was a technical mess on release and was foolishly full price despite being a year and a half late port, both of which clearpy kneecapped it's sales). Square needs to get over these timed exclusivity deals and release FF full multiplat day one moving foward, and it seems like that is exactly what they are planning to do after this final 3 month deal with Sony (which was likely made years ago as a 1 year deal and then shortened more recently by Square).

I hope Xbox gives us an updated Game Pass number soon but they probably won't until the end of the quarter, I'm only curious how many people were still stuck on Xbox Live Gold only. We'll know by how much Game Pass increases from a 25-30m range. 10m? 20m? 30m?

It depends on the terms of the moneyhat.  Final Fantasy XV sold around 10 million as of May 2022, if Square Enix got what the average publisher gets per game it's about $27 per game sold.  So 3 million times $27 is about 81 million dollars.  If Sony paid 50 million for exclusivity SE potentially lost money on FF 7, if Sony paid 100 million, it more than made up for the difference.

Upcoming BGS

(I really should change this to Bethesda Softworks, not Bethesda Game Studios).

Have a feeling this will be light for a while, Lol. Bethesda sometimes goes through more quieter periods like this. We've gone from having Indiana Jones, Deathloop, Elder Scrolls VI, Starfield and Ghostwire announced to just Elder Scrolls and Indiana Jones. Bethesda in recent history as well prefers to have a shorter announce-release marketing cycle.

I do think they've done their part for Xbox though, aside from 2022 being light on both parties, Bethesda did great in 2023 with Hi-Fi Rush and Starfield (Quake II if you want to count that). Two GOTY's Imho. Starfield and Forza Motorsport should be good until early 2024 but I think this will be where Bethesda goes into a relatively quiet period for releases while they've been popping off the past couple years.

I think we could if we're lucky get ID Software next year though and then Zenimax/Indiana Jones in 2025. Especially on ID's part as Phil was heavily hinting about it at the June showcase, as if it's close to being revealed. But XGS is filling 2024 quite nicely already with Flight Sim 2024, Towerborne, Avowed and Hellblade 2 thus far with more unannounced so only one thing from BGS will be fine.

I do think Bethesda Softworks regardless of being apart of Xbox or not should acquire/have acquired more though, they always seemed pretty small to me, not just in employee size but studio size, I believe Zenimax is among the smallest in both metrics of all the major publishers. I would like to see Zenimax acquire a studio or two under Xbox.

Their last acquisition or studio creation was in 2019 and those were Roundhouse (seems to be a small support studio) and Alpha Dog (very small mobile studio). Bit surprised they didn't jump onboard the acquisition craze during the pandemic. Would like to see them add another original AAA or two along with further support networks for BGS.