Those are not going to convince many players to join Xbox. Im thinking more like Halo, Forza and Gears. If you want people to actually consider getting into Xbox. Maybe Sea Of Thieves could do something. Thats a pretty big one actually.

But as I feared, we know about as much now as we knew going into this podcast...

Looking at what was announced, my thoughts:

• None of the 4 games are surprising
• Glad there will continue to be new exclusives, even if not everything will be exclusive
• Biggest hardware leap of any gaming generation ever is quite the tease. I'm skeptical that it will truly be the biggest leap in actual hardware though, if the leaks are right we are only looking at 6 years between Xbox Series X and next-gen Xbox, that is not enough time for a massive leap in actual hardware specs unless it is very expensive. I'd rather say that things like better dedicated raytracing cores that allow path tracing, and AI frame generation to nearly double framerates at the chosen graphics settings, will do the heavy lifting of making this next-gen Xbox seem like the biggest hardware leap yet.
• Guessing the unique hardware tease could be a reference to the dual-layer Xbox and Windows OS, or it could be about the rumored cloud graphics improvements from the slide that leaked out in the ABK court case
• Glad ABK games are coming to base Gamepass, feared they would be Gamepass Ultimate exclusive
• New Xbox Series hardware option this year is somewhat surprising, the AMD leaker suggested the mid-gen refresh console had been cancelled and even Phil said that slide that had leaked was outdated and no longer matched their current plans. Could just be a cheaper to produce model on a small nm production line, or a larger SSD model though.

I personally don't see much benefit in the small games like Pentiment and Hi-fi to PS and Nintendo, but all live service i feel should go to everyone. Even helldivers if sony was smart.

They made it clear that they would want to grow communities. Not necessarily to buy an Xbox. Like what they currently do with Minecraft, Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout 76, etc. If some play these Xbox games and decide to buy an Xbox because there's also Indiana Joens, cool. Whereas games like Pentiment and Hi-Fi Rush would benefit from having more access to more gamers just because they're smaller and more niche. 

The biggest gets I got out of this podcast is:

1) Major games will remain exclusive (I.E. Starfield and Indiana Jones) games that would be considered "system sellers"
2) Xbox is NOT going third-party. 

Tbf, sea of thieves deserved it at the time with how it launched. After 500 plus hours it's very fun and addicting, but it took time to get to that point. 

So they are trying to grow the Pentiment community?

Insiders can go fuck themselves and Ryuu and or G2, needs to stop posting them. Especially Jizz.

He also said there's not a fundamental change to their exclusive strategy so you have to take both statements or neither, also said there's no plans currently for anything else and will see how these ones go, based on various factors, some will come, some won't come, case by case, that's all it really was, but I think the obvious focus is what they clearly laid out, smaller/niche titles like Hi-Fi Rush and Pentiment and large live-service titles which require a healthy community like Grounded and Sea of Thieves, both already been exclusive for years, the driving goal was to expand the franchises of a niche Pentiment/HFR and maintain a healthy community for Grounded/SoT, decisions made based on the games being old and already reaching their full potential for Xbox.

It's a far cry from "EVERYTHING MULTIPLATFORM! NO MORE XBOX HARDWARE! STARFIELD IS COMING! GEARS OF WAR IS COMING! GAME PASS IS NOT RECEIVING DAY ONE ANYMORE! ABK WON'T COME!" and been a MASSIVE overreaction by the larger gaming community, especially some tools in the Xbox community (on Twitter), Lmao. In fact, the stream was filled with some positive news even, a confirmation of Diablo IV on Game Pass, confirmation of multiple Xbox hardware, a suped up one and a unique one, confirmation of the June showcase.

"Whereas games like Pentiment and Hi-Fi Rush would benefit from having more access to more gamers just because they're smaller and more niche"

That was not in reference to community hence the "whereas" to start the sentence lol

My biggest thing was always the hardware, so now they are more fully invested into that. Gamepass can only really grow through hardware and what they have on pc. Kinda restores some faith in Xbox for me.

Can't wait until Sony starts putting more games on xbox.