A Big But Messy Year

It’s been a very strange year for Xbox. You could say Microsoft’s gaming brand has had an amazing year, or you could say it’s had its worst year, and either way, I’d probably find myself nodding along with most of your points.

Sure, Xbox has a ton of games on consoles, PCs, and mobile devices, but the company has also made Game Pass a mess. Yes, Xbox’s presentation this year was fantasticgave fans an exciting roadmap for the future, but Microsoft’s gaming division also laid off a lot of people while trying to explain that it was all part of the plan. They said everything was fine, but the frequency with which the person in charge kept telling us this was starting to raise suspicion.

Last year, I said Xbox could make significant progress in 2024and in most cases, it is. But I’m also worried about what it will cost. By 2024, we’ve discovered what Xbox is willing to pay.

Activision and Bethesda saved Xbox, but it also suffered

This is the first year of a new era for Xbox. The company now fully owns and operates Activision/Blizzard/King and Bethesda, as well as other studios it has acquired over the past few years. Thanks to Activision and Bethesda, Microsoft has a solid video game release schedule in 2024.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 is one of the biggest games of the year And, since Xbox now fully owns Activision Blizzard, it’s arriving with Game Pass on day one. Blizzard releases an expansion pack Diablo 4, Coming to Game Pass in early 2024and taking an already great game and making it even bigger and better. Bethesda launches first expansion pack starry sky and launch Elder Scrolls Castle on mobile devices and new extensions The Elder Scrolls Online. At the end of the year, we launched the Big Game Pass: Indiana Jones and the Circleone of the better-reviewed games of 2024. world of warcraft got new extensions, CoD Warzone Mobile Available on mobile and some old Activision games like Spyro and Crash Bandicoot Added to Game Pass library.

When it comes to new games and gadgets, well, without these games and expansions from Activision and Bethesda (many of which are coming to Game Pass), the Xbox will have one A very quiet and arguably very disappointing year. However, these big publishers – and all the people they employ, who are having a great year for Xbox – haven’t been immune to layoffs and closures.

January, Microsoft announces layoffs of approximately 1,900 employees Activision, Bethesda and other Xbox studios. Just three months after Xbox officially acquired Activision Blizzard, this resulted in FTC files formal complaint. The FTC says that’s exactly what the agency was worried about when it tried to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard.

Then, four months later, Xbox was even laid off more people. May 7, Xbox announces it will close three Bethesda studios——Tango game (Hi-Fi Audio Sprint), Akane Austin (Hongluo) and Alpha Dog Games (powerful doomsday)——The fourth support studio, Roundhouse Studios, was absorbed by the team behind it The Elder Scrolls Online. (Xbox cuts are even bigger in September.)

As usual, those in charge say this is necessary for a better future, but when they keep saying that every year after every round of firings, that sentiment becomes harder and harder to swallow.

Ironically, with all those Bethesda and Activision employees laid off, some of Xbox’s biggest games this year are coming from those companies. Xbox is happy to spend millions on advertising Indiana Jones and the Circle, The Elder Scrolls Onlinenew extensions, and call of Duty. But it’s not willing to support the employees behind these games and others in its publisher family, Record year for layoffs across industry. You see, no matter the state of the world, the Game Pass machine still needs more blood.

Enhancements to Xbox Game Pass

Speaking of Game Pass, Xbox’s video game subscription service received a lot of new games in 2024. Here are just some of them Games arriving on Game Pass day one: “Palworld”, “Indiana Jones and the Circle”, “MLB The Show 2024”, “Harold Halibut”, “Hellblade 2”, “Hinterberg Dungeon”, “Ara: The Untold” “History”, “The Call of Duty: Black Ops 6”, and Metal Slug Tactics. In addition to day one launches, Game Pass also adds older games such as Resident Evil 2 remake,Control,Dead Island 2and more to its library.

However, Xbox Game Pass isn’t as easy to recommend as it has been in years past. That’s because in July, Xbox announced big changes to Game Pass.

Previously, it was simple: You paid a monthly fee and got every new first-party Xbox game, plus a few other releases. If you pay more, you can also get PC games and streaming games.

But this summer, Xbox announced a significant price increase for all Xbox plans. The Xbox Game Pass Ultimate package includes all content, and the price has increased from $17 to $20. Meanwhile, the previous console-only plan, which cost $11 per month, is being retired and replaced by a new “Game Pass Standard” package, which costs $15 per month and no longer includes day-one content. Xbox explained that eventually some day-one releases will make their way to Standard Edition, but didn’t specify a timeline.

Bottom line: Everyone pays more for Game Pass, but not everyone gets access to big new games like this call of duty black ops 6 at launch. Not so good! As long as Game Pass exists, the promise of first-party games will be faint has always been its big selling point. But in 2024, Xbox seemed to be trying to recoup Activision Blizzard’s nearly $70 billion in costs, but it ruined what was once the best deal in gaming.

Everything is Xbox, including your PS5 and Switch

Perhaps the strangest storyline for Microsoft in 2024 is the way the company is trying to deal with dwindling console sales while telling Xbox fans not to worry.

I mean, if you look at everything that’s going on in 2024, things are not going well for the Xbox console. again, Xbox sales bleak Compared to PlayStation and Nintendo in 2024. It is saiddue to the smaller player base, some publishers are unsure whether they will continue to release games on Xbox consoles.

Xbox also Start porting more move its games to other platforms, causing a storm among its most loyal followers. then you have Xbox’s Weird Marketing This campaign essentially tells people: “Hey, you don’t need to buy an Xbox to play our games!“At the same time, upcoming games from Xbox-owned studios, such as Doom: Dark Ages and The outside world 2which will launch on PS5 in 2025. even faint Will it appear on PlayStation one day?. Oh, and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, The Xbox exclusive masterpiece launched in December is planning to land on PS5 next year, although Xbox boss Phil Spencer has previously said that won’t happen.

All this seems to show that Xbox is pulling Sega’s footsteps and going multi-platform in the future. However, spencer and others on Xbox Keep talking about something else. “We will definitely be launching more consoles and other devices in the future,” Spencer told us rolling stones November. The Xbox boss also claimed The company is also developing a handheld device similar to the Steam Deck. But that’s still years away and may be mothballed before it comes out.

However, the same month he promised more hardware, Xbox finally started letting users stream some of the games they already own No Xbox console.

According to Xbox, the future will definitely include new consoles, but you won’t need to buy them as Microsoft’s games will be available via the cloud or ported to other platforms. This sounds less like a confident and polished blueprint for the future and more like a jumble of promises and personal plans designed to distract us from reality.

The future of Xbox and Microsoft looks weird

As 2024 draws to a close, the reality is this: With Microsoft focusing most of its money on artificial intelligence, the Xbox seems to be moving forward aimlessly.

Of course, Xbox has a huge roster of studios and publishers, which will help it develop and release more games on more platforms in 2025 and beyond than ever before. However, it can’t seem to support all of these studios and keeps closing them or laying off employees.

Game Pass is now a questionable and expensive subscription plan, a very poor version of what we used to have, and it’s only going to get worse as Microsoft looks to keep growing digitally in the absence of new subscribers.

If you’re in the market for a new console, investing in the Xbox Series X/S is almost like a gamble at this point. I’m not suggesting that Microsoft will shut down its consoles overnight. But as the company invests more and more in streaming and increasingly rolls out its exclusive multi-platform offerings, there are fewer and fewer reasons to own an Xbox, whatever that means in 2024.

2025 could also be a big year for Xbox. Over the next few months, it will launch new games from Bethesda, Activision, and many of its own studios, and it’s likely to announce more as time goes on. But 2024 is also a big year for Xbox; it just comes at the cost of massive layoffs, huge price increases, and multiple studio closures. So while some Xbox fans may be excited for another big year, what I’m really worried about is how much blood will be spent on it.

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