A week after Phil Spencer’s promise, Microsoft is already dancing back from the Xbox One.

 

Scam Show: Microsoft Edition? Either Phil Spencer lied or Microsoft intervened.

Either way, they said we won’t need an Xbox Series X for at least two years.

How convinced were you of Microsoft’s promise? Did you believe that you would not have to change generations right away? Did you believe that you would be able to play next-gen games without next-gen hardware? Well, you better think about it again: at least half of the games on display, including Forza, don’t come on Xbox One either!

 

Well, that now either means that these games will be a good deal late, or Microsoft has simply lied to our face.

 

 

For several years now, Microsoft has been building a future where you will supposedly not need the latest console to play the latest games – many of these games will run on a wide range of machines, Xbox One, Xbox One S, Xbox One X, Windows PC – and we’ve been told that the next Xbox, the Xbox Series X, will be the culmination of that vision. It was going to be running our favorite Xbox Classic, Xbox 360 and Xbox One games, alongside the wonders of the next generation. And Microsoft has been arguing all along that the 2013’s Xbox One will also cope with the Xbox Series X games in some form.

 

Specifically, the company has promised that internally developed first-party titles will run one-on-one on the current-generation machine, and we won’t have to buy an Xbox Series X for at least two more years.

 

Here’s what Phil Spencer said last week:

„You won’t be forced into the next generation. We want every Xbox player to play all the new games from Xbox Game Studios. That’s why Xbox Game Studios titles we release in the next couple of years—like Halo Infinite—will be available and play great on Xbox Series X and Xbox One. We won’t force you to upgrade to Xbox Series X at launch to play Xbox exclusives.”

 

Now let’s look at what Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty said to MCV in January:

 

“As our content comes out over the next year, two years, all of our games, sort of like PC, will play up and down that family of devices,” Booty explains. “We want to make sure that if someone invests in Xbox between now and [Series X] that they feel that they made a good investment and that we’re committed to them with content.”

 

 

Heck, what I’m quoting now will be the third promise from March:

„We’re making the commitment to use Smart Delivery on all our exclusive Xbox Game Studios titles, including Halo Infinite, ensuring you only have to purchase a title once in order to play the best available version for whichever Xbox console they choose to play on.”

 

 

Yesterday, however, at the Xbox Games Showcase, there were several first-party games, including Forza Motorsport, Fable, Avowed, As Dusk Falls from the otherwise independent team but current member of Xbox Game Studios, and both Everwild and State of Decay 3 where one may have noticed that they are coming specifically for Xbox Series X and PC – without Xbox One support and Smart Delivery. Again, these are titles released by Microsoft’s Xbox Game Studios, and almost all the developers who created them are in Microsoft’s pocket! So there is no objection: it seems like a conscious, superior instruction!

 

 

 

The Trial

 

All of this leads me to three possible conclusions:

1.) Microsoft broke its word in record time,

2.) Six out of nine exclusive next-gen titles that Microsoft announced yesterday will come at least two years after the machine was released,

3.) Someone thoroughly messed up with the game datasheet at the presentation…

 

 

Neither 1 nor 2 is very encouraging, but everything we saw from Microsoft yesterday points to  #1.

 

In the first round, Microsoft provided the following evasive response:

 

“Our future Xbox Game Studios titles are being developed natively for Xbox Series X. We will continue to invest in tools for devs to scale across consoles. Which consoles each Studio/game can support will be based on what’s best for their game and their community at launch,” reads Microsoft’s statement to The Verge.

 

 

(Of course, the question arises, what was the point of merging the studios without strong central control? Because if it really is that this will appear on Xbox One, and this will not, then what was the point of merging? What was the point of merging if everyone it just develops back and forth, why isn’t the studios are told to do the backwards compatibility, that a certain game should come to Xbox One too, just because they promised it, huh?!

 

And when Verge asked Microsoft whether it was yes or no, if it was keeping its previous promise or not, or whether maybe the game datasheet was wrong, the company didn’t give an answer. The Redmond company began pointing to the next tweet, which came from Xbox marketing chief Aaron Greenberg, and still didn’t clarify anything.

 

 

For a minute, then, it seemed that there was perhaps a problem with the datasheets because Avowed was referring to the Xbox One on its new website, as was the project page, which mentioned As Dusk Falls and Everwild. Then, in a turn of things, Greenberg answered a question from Stephen Totilo, a journalist at Kotaku, who said that the websites would be updated soon – suggesting that there was a problem with the websites, not the presentation…

So that’s how it happened: Avowed and Everwild no longer list the Xbox One as a platform it will be released upon. Clearly, Microsoft is no longer promising that the first wave of its next-gen games will come on Xbox One consoles.

 

Let’s see what Microsoft said during the event, which game will come and where:

 

XBOX SERIES X / WINDOWS PC

• State of Decay 3 – optimized for Series X, first party
• Forza Motorsport – optimized for Series X, first party
• Fable – optimized for Series X, first party
• Avowed – optimized for Series X, first party
• As Dusk Falls – optimized for Series X, first party
• Everwild – optimized for Series X, first party
• Stalker 2 – optimized for Series X, console launch exclusive
• Warhammer 40,000 Darktide – optimized for Series X, console launch exclusive
• The Medium – optimized for Series X, console launch exclusive

 

XBOX SERIES X / XBOX ONE / WINDOWS PC

• Halo Infinite – optimized for Series X, will also have optimizations for PC
• Tell Me Why
• Grounded – optimized for Series X
• Psychonauts 2 – optimized for Series X
• Destiny 2 Beyond Light – optimized for Series X
• Tetris Effect Connected – optimized for Series X, console launch exclusive
• The Gunk – optimized for Series X, console launch exclusive
• New Genesis Phantasy Star Online 2 – optimized for Series X, console launch exclusive

 

XBOX SERIES X / XBOX ONE

• CrossfireX – optimized for Series X, console launch exclusive

 

 

Judgment: The Accused is guilty!

 

It would have been straighter if players and developers alike were told to forget about Xbox One, don’t even try with backward compatibility! Instead, they even lied to us!

This is not a person, of course, just a company, and that’s how companies work. What is the most irritating thing about it though? The fact that in the event that the answer to my question at the beginning of the article was yes, and that you believed it all, then it may be that Microsoft has now thoroughly screwed up with you.

Because let’s say you rushed to buy the Cyberpunk Edition of the Xbox One X, in the belief that the machine would serve you for about two more years as promised. Okay. But it won’t, because it won’t run the exclusives!

But to make it even darker, shortly after Microsoft and Phil Spencer made the promise detailed above, the company simply decided it was ready to stop production of the Xbox One quietly! So they let the emboldened, hopeful gamers sweep the consoles from the shelves, which were often much cheaper now too (stock sweeps, right?), and then let the loyal Xbox One gamers down.

You really shouldn’t do this Microsoft. At the beginning of this generation, you could have learned it already that you must pay for such shady business practices!

You’ve already paid the price against PS4. Pray that it doesn’t happen again with PS5!

 

Source: The Verge

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