I really like how the bundle has 50 cent discount. Thanks, Atlus

Yeah its so stupid lol

When was the last time Xbox even considered funding their own JRPG title without cancelling it? Even if those attempts didn't bear much fruit in the past, it at least builds goodwill and shows they're trying to reach more audiences and diversify their product.

If Xbox just wants stick more with what appeals to their main base, you can't really complain when other publishers outside that base aren't keen to join hands.

Damn - didnt even bother releasing the FF Pixel collection which wouldnt cost them much to begin with since its on everywhere else.

Yeah, Chad Moore is the Game Director on Project Cobalt.

I've thought that Eidos assisting InXile makes a lot of sense, we know Eidos is assisting an Xbox studio other than Playground Games, Eidos has over 600 employees according to Linkedin and not much in active development, they have a new IP which was recently rescoped and Deus Ex which sounds like it's in pre-production, so unless a huge chunk of Eidos is on Fable, there should still be a large chunk left.

InXile's RPG is an FPS and Eidos has a lot of experience in FPS RPG's due to Deus Ex.

I think it's a bit of both. Yes, some developers are skipping Xbox simply because Xbox has the lowest install base, or because they are Japanese devs and believe there aren't enough fans of Japanese games on Xbox who will purchase their games. To a degree, it is about sales with Square Enix, I think they skipped Xbox on the FF Pixel Remasters because the Xbox ports of FF7, FF8, FF9, FF10/10-2, and FF12 didn't do all that well. Even with a Gamepass boost, TA has most of them with only about 20-30k players, only FF7 did better with over 50k players. Xbox gamers likely skipped them due to Gamepass game overload and because most of them were simple ports with very little done to enhance them graphically, let alone mechanically. To Square that tells them that Xbox gamers just aren't interested in old ports and thus are skipping the Pixel Remasters on Xbox since they too are just old ports that have been AI enhanced to improve the original pixel art slightly.
 
However, that doesn't tell us the whole picture about Square's poor treatment of Xbox. While they may have a good reason for not porting the pixel remasters, not everything they fail to port is backed by such logic. Before the FF Gamepass deal was ever a thing, FF Type 0 HD and FF 15 both sold fairly well on Xbox, which should show Square Enix that enough Xbox people will buy brand new Final Fantasy games to more than cover the cost of the port and turn a profit on the port. Type 0 HD on True Achievements has more players than most of the FF7-12 ports did without being on Gamepass like those were, while I'm pretty sure FF15 had over 100k TA players before it went into Gamepass, while VGChartz sales data indicates lifetime sales for the Xbox version between 1.5-2m copies. Square has all the data they need to know that brand new FF games perform well enough on Xbox, and yet they were willing to sell Sony both an initial timed hat deal on FF7 Remake and then later a lifetime exclusivity deal once the timed hat deal was about to expire, plus a timed hat deal on FF16 which also may grow into lifetime before all is said and done. That is more than just business, you don't skip a platform where sales data of the previous AAA FF game indicates sales of well over 1m copies just because of business, there is something personal Square has against Xbox there.

Then there is the Dragon Quest situation. DQ11 did pretty well on Xbox and Gamepass, with over 50k players on TA alone. That should be a large enough base to start to release future DQ games on Xbox without Xbox needing to hat Gamepass deals on them, and yet the upcoming action RPG Infinity Strash: Dragon Quest- The Adventures of Dai, is skipping Xbox. Being an action RPG, it is likely more suited to the Xbox playerbase than the turn based DQ games are, and yet Square seems to be refusing to port it without a Gamepass hat from Phil. And on Phil's end, it seems like he has had it with Square constantly having their hands out asking for Gamepass money, we haven't seen a single Square Enix gamepass deal from Xbox in nearly a year now afaik, not since Guardians of the Galaxy, and it has been even longer since he has paid to get a JP Square game onto Gamepass, none of those since Octopath Traveler 21 months ago. Maybe it's retribution for Square extending the FF7R timed hat into a lifetime deal with Sony, hard to say.

No matter what way you look at it, the relationship between Xbox and Square is rapidly deteriorating. Phil seems to be concentrating most of his Gamepass JP hat money into niche developers, Namco Bandai, Capcom, and Sega/Atlus these days, publishers who aren't out there making exclusivity deals with Sony left and right like Square is these days. Meanwhile as Square and Sony grow more and more close, a Sony acquisition of Square seems more and more likely, especially if the regulators do pass the Activision-Blizzard deal. 

There was a comment earlier that Xbox should essentially pay for ports and I just wanted to say that I think that would set an awfully dangerous precedent, Japanese developers shouldn't get preferential treatment no matter how much some of us want them, if Xbox starts paying Japanese developers for ports then what is to stop someone who actually sells well on Xbox, a larger publisher, from demanding that Xbox pays them too? Nothing.

Has PlayStation/Nintendo/Steam ever had to pay for ports?

This is where Game Pass has helped things a lot, since Game Pass we've had quite a lot of titles release on Xbox for either the first time ever or the first time in years, and that's because there's a very real business reason to pay for the titles, Xbox isn't paying for ports, they are paying for a title to be in Game Pass, it's just a side benefit that the payment Microsoft gives essentially covers the porting costs.

Some companies like Sega, took advantage of Game Pass to get some IPs on Xbox (Yakuza, for example), and then their follow-ups didn't release directly onto Game Pass, why? Because Sega understands how to grow a fanbase, Sega actually takes a risk, unlike Square Enix, who are richer than Sega, Square is a very risk averse company and give up far too quickly.

I don't think Square hates Xbox, I just think they don't like taking risks, I think they can't be bothered to grow the Xbox fanbase and I think that now they're simply waiting for a Game Pass cheque (which I understand there's quite a long line) and maybe we'll eventually get them but I'm confident in saying that without Game Pass we won't get them at all because that's just Square.

There is definitely still work to be done (although I'm noticing people listing titles which are actually releasing on Xbox now, Lol) and that is mostly about making Xbox as easy to develop for as possible and increasing Xbox's install base to make ignoring it harder. I'm not sure even Xbox has to sell that great in Japan since it seems like a huge chunk of Japanese IP fans exist in the West too.

I don't really see outside of Square many major publishers/developers skipping Xbox, not including Sony money-hats and I still think things have improved a lot lately with Xbox support, way more Japanese support than the Xbox One era and some popular indie developers who skipped Xbox entirely have came back, like Supergiant Games. Xbox has some indie titles come to it first, Sony has some come to it first, nothing has changed there.

Only issue is that Xbox does barely fuck all to market them, as an example, Nobody Saves the World in 2022, a great indie from a well known developer, barely marketed and they dropped the ABK acquisition news on the same date of its release, Lmao. Y'all listed Gris which is...now coming, so that is also progress.

I don't think Xbox really needs to fund their own JRPGs either (although they should), the Japanese audience is a lot bigger than one genre (JRPG) and when was the last time someone like Sony funded their own JRPG? And honestly, I feel like nowadays the vast majority of the JRPG market comes from Nintendo and Square Enix but I'm not that invested so Idk for sure.

There are for sure some Japanese titles that still need to come, and I hope we get them for your guys benefit, but I wouldn't exactly call them large IPs, I'm sure Xbox will get round to them eventually but when everywhere else seems to see improvement, like Christ, even Atlus is back on Xbox, but Square is the most noticeable holdout still, maybe the issue is Square? Lol.

Another JRPG on Gamepass bites the dust. We will soon be down to just Ni No Kuni 1 and 2, P3, P4, P5, Yakuza: Like A Dragon, and Mon Hun Rise unless I am forgetting something. Hopefully Phil makes some new JRPG Gamepass deals soon. Like A Dragon leaves in June if it was a 2 year deal.

Wow, High on Life outsold CoD MW2 on Steam last week! Who knew the game would be this big lol