In addition to acquiring more and more studios, the giant is continually pushing its Game Pass service as a essential part of being an Xbox customer. Avowed may hint more about Microsoft’s game plan regarding the future of Xbox, which seems to be a patient one for now. While there’s a great chance that Microsoft will deliver on its promises, such an approach has its risks.
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Microsoft’s History With First-Party Offerings
It’s not the first time that Microsoft has acquired a bunch of game studios in hopes of creating a stellar first-party library. The giant had previously acquired big-name studios such as Rare, which inarguably had a streak of heavy-hitters on the N64. Rare’s offerings on Microsoft’s platforms such as Perfect Dark Zero and Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts were decent games but failed to reach the heights of their predecessors.
This might not mean that Microsoft’s acquisitions or involvement with its acquired studios might be the problem, but is something that curious fans would already know. In addition to this, heavily delayed first-party titles such as Crackdown 3 haven’t received the best of critical reception while others such as Scalebound were outright canceled. Therein lies the risk that Microsoft has to overcome, but if these risks pay off, it’ll be a big generation for Xbox.
Xbox Game Pass Seems To Be The Saving Grace
While Microsoft may have a long-running history with underwhelming acquisitions and third-party deals that is attempting to correct, its evergrowing Xbox Game Pass service seems to be its saving grace for now. Announced in 2017, the service has seen an exponential increase in its value proposition, which was already great to begin with. In addition to releasing every first-party title on the service at launch, Microsoft is continuously looking out for third-party exclusivity deals and launch availability of select AAA releases such as Outriders and MLB The Show 21.
Xbox Game Pass is available on a multitude of different platforms, but Microsoft seems to be positioning its Xbox to be the premier platform for the service. Combining that with a cheaper Xbox Series S seems to be doing wonders for the giant for now, but Xbox might need to deliver in the exclusives department quickly nevertheless.
Sony’s risk-averse strategy has caused distress among many fans, but there’s little to no doubt that games such as the fan-named God of War: Ragnarok and Horizon: Forbidden West is enough to warrant a console purchase for most fans. While Xbox does have a bunch of planned exclusives, it really needs to deliver an equal number of heavy hitters soon before the majority of the gaming demographic jumps onto the next generation of consoles.
Avowed is currently in development.
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