According to Polygon, Microsoft’s Xbox Series X and S consoles launched in 2020 as potentially the company’s best hardware ever, featuring reliable performance, silent operation, and innovative features like Quick Resume. The $68.7 billion Activision Blizzard acquisition in 2022 fundamentally changed Microsoft’s gaming strategy, forcing the company to prioritize multiplatform releases over Xbox exclusivity. By 2023, developers were struggling with Series S compatibility requirements, leading to situations like Baldur’s Gate 3 launching late on Xbox. Game Pass subscription prices increased by 50% as Microsoft shifted focus beyond consoles toward a “very premium, very high end” Windows-based device. The result has been Xbox Series consoles that failed to improve on Xbox One’s dismal market share while PlayStation 5 continued to dominate sales.
Hardware Triumph, Strategic Failure
Here’s the thing about the Xbox Series X and S – they’re genuinely great pieces of hardware. The Series X matches PS5’s power in a more elegant package, runs silently, and delivers quality-of-life features that actually work. The Series S? That little box showed real foresight about keeping gaming accessible as prices kept climbing. But great hardware doesn’t matter if the strategy behind it falls apart.
Microsoft’s insistence that all games work on both Series X and S created a developer nightmare. When Larian Studios couldn’t get Baldur’s Gate 3 working on the weaker Series S, PlayStation got an accidental exclusive on one of 2023’s biggest games. Microsoft had to send its own engineers to fix the problem. Basically, the company’s attempt to be inclusive ended up creating barriers instead.
The Game Pass Gamble
Game Pass looms over everything Microsoft does in gaming now. It’s the Netflix-style subscription service that drove the Activision acquisition and most studio purchases. But here’s the problem: how many people actually play enough different games to make Game Pass worthwhile?
Most gamers stick to two or three titles yearly, not the constant rotation that subscription services need. After that 50% price hike, the value proposition looks shaky. And let’s be real – if Microsoft could put Game Pass on PlayStation, they absolutely would. So why buy an Xbox console at all?
The End of Xbox Exclusives
Remember when console wars were fought with exclusive games? Those days are over for Xbox. Forza Horizon 5, Indiana Jones, and soon Starfield are all coming to PlayStation. We already know Forza Horizon 6 will eventually make the jump too.
The economics are brutal – AAA game development costs so much that limiting sales to one platform doesn’t make sense anymore. Even Sony’s putting its games on PC. But Microsoft went from “all in on Xbox” to dropping console exclusives like they were radioactive. When you spend $68.7 billion on game studios, you need those games everywhere to recoup costs.
What’s Left For Xbox?
So where does this leave Xbox fans? With hardware that’s technically excellent but strategically abandoned. Microsoft’s next gaming device sounds more like a premium Windows PC than a traditional console. The company that once challenged PlayStation head-on now seems content to become just another game publisher.
The irony is thick enough to cut with a knife. Microsoft finally built consoles that could compete with PlayStation on hardware merits, then lost interest in the competition entirely. As more games become cross-platform experiences, the need for specific hardware diminishes. But for those of us who remember the glory days of Xbox 360, watching Microsoft essentially surrender the console war feels like watching a champion boxer retire right before the title fight.
Maybe this was inevitable after the Minecraft acquisition showed Microsoft the power of being everywhere rather than locked to one platform. Still, it’s hard not to wonder what might have been if Microsoft had shown the same commitment to its console ecosystem as it did to building the hardware. The Xbox Series X and S deserved better than to become footnotes in gaming history.
