This definitely comes to mind with how insane the rumors were leading up to this. Especially those that were thinking Xbox is going third party lol

Xbox is keeping our promise to bring more games to more players around the world.

With an incredible year of major releases like Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, Avowed, Ara: History Untold, Towerborne and more — 2024 is going to be great for Xbox players around the world and we can’t wait to see you in June for the Xbox Showcase

Today we’re also continuing our commitment to expanding the communities we reach. We are in the process of bringing 4 Xbox games to other platforms.

These are games which have been available to Xbox players for at least a year — including hidden gems that deserve to be experienced more widely, and live service games whose communities will benefit from welcoming even more players! We’ll share more details on these titles soon.

As we begin to fulfill our promise to offer Activision Blizzard games with Game Pass, we're happy to share Diablo IV will be available with Game Pass on Console and PC on March 28.

Game Pass will continue to only be available on Xbox platforms and will have all first party games playable on day one.

Xbox hardware will also continue to be a flagship experience for players and for game developers to launch games on with a robust and innovative multi-year hardware roadmap, including more console and controller options for you this holiday.

Xbox will continue to be a platform where you will play the biggest games, a platform that is dedicated to you with features like backwards compatibility, cross-save, cross-play, and robust cloud features.

This all means that the biggest games in the world will be available on Xbox, with continued Game Pass day one releases, a multi-year hardware roadmap, and a commitment to a player-first platform. We are here to help game creators reach the largest audience possible. The biggest games are larger than any one platform.

Summary

• Four titles coming to other consoles (Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Sea of Thieves and Grounded).
• All are over a year old. Two are community-driven and service-based. Two are smaller.
• "Hasn't been a change to the company doing Xbox exclusives" but Phil thinks they'll be fewer console exclusives across the industry over the next decade.
• Microsoft will consider the potential for more multiplatform releases in the future based on various factors, such as, if the game is successful because it's still development work needed, want to make sure they get a return on investment, decisions made with long-term health of Xbox in mind, growing the platform and games, building a platform for creators, reaching players.
• Want to give other platforms a taste of Xbox games.
• Xbox fan reactions will be taken into account but Phil isn't sold on the idea that exclusives always bring Xbox console sales.
• Teasing a next-gen Xbox that delivers "the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation."
• Teasing a hardware which is "unique"
• Diablo IV coming to Game Pass on March 28th.
• Game Pass hits 34m subscribers.
• Confirmed no changes to Game Pass.
• Confirmed June Showcase.
• New hardware options in the Series X|S line coming out this fall.

Grounded, Pentiment, Sea of Thieves, Hi-Fi Rush.

WHERE'S THE BIG GAME, TOM?!

Hi-Fi Rush will be a hit on PS and Switch. Pentiment will still be very niche and can at least get some more sales to justify more games like that. Will be funny to hear about millions of PS owners playing Sea of Thieves after how this game got destroyed on the Internet from many PS fans lol.

Yeah, I think gaming studios in the US and Canada made a big mistake putting their studios in or near high cost of living cities like Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Austin, Montreal, Vancouver, and Toronto. The fact that so many western AAA cities are congregated in those cities are a big part of the balooning AAA budget problem. I mean look at this map of the highest and lowest cost of living large cities in the US:

I can't think of a Single AAA developer (or even AA for that matter) that is headquartered in one of those 10 lowest cost of living cities, meanwhile out of the 10 highest cost of living cities there I know of game studios in San Diego, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Bethesda, and New York City. 

Like you said, Japan has managed to keep their budgets much more in check, and part of that is because the cost of living and therefore developer pay is lower over there. Alan Wake 2 and Lords of the Fallen last year are two other examples, they are two of the most recent games we know the budgets for. Remedy is in low cost of living Espoo Finland, which according to this page has has 25% lower non-rent cost of living than New York City and 72% lower rent than NYC. I'm sure that is a big part of why Remedy were able to develop Alan Wake 2 for just €50m (plus €20m marketing), it was the one of the most expensive productions ever in Finland, but compared to most US and Canada AAA games it's budget wasn't even half of what they spend. Lords of the Fallen meanwhile was made by Hexworks last year for $66m USD in combined development, marketing, and physical edition production costs, a really low number compared to most US and Canada produced video games. Hexworks is headquartered in 2 cities, Barcelona Spain and Bucharest Romania, which as you can see here and here, both cities have way lower cost of living than NYC.

I really think that the western gaming industry should consider moving some of their studios to lower cost of living areas, the cost of the move will be far offset by the lower salaries they will be able to pay after the move, since employees will have just as much buying power in their local area despite being paid less. At the very least new studios that are opening should be opened in low-mid cost of living areas instead of the highest cost of living areas. 

Good to hear they are finally bringing Activision games to Gamepass

Aside from the usual sugar-coated PR of "more players and community is always good".

They still went on to not name the 4 games announced for other platforms, without naming them too.

Starfield and Indiana Jones not coming on PS5 "for now". Which is basically part of a slow but deliberate release strategy I think. That last part shouldn't have been left open like they just did though cuz you know speculation will now endlessly continue.

Diablo IV is coming to Gamepass on March 28th, which is weird for it being the only Activision Blizzard game so far on the Gamepass but it is currently mostly a "dead game" with some of the shittiest monetizations for a premium game so I guess they hope to make good money from those interested in.

They're working on hardware, and possibility of looking into different form of devices ... Like every console manufacturer as usual. Therefore, to announce that they're.making in the foreseeable future.

Conclusion : Xbox is not dead


At first it doesn't seem much really, but it's pretty bigger than a simple nothing burger.

Sawyer doesn't care I reckon, or well, he does care about sales obviously but he seems so proud of his work that he'd just be happy at even 10 more people playing it, Lmao. From what I've seen about how he speaks about sales with Pentiment, it just seems he wants people to play it, learn some history, maybe get into history themselves, it was a real passion project for him.