It took just a day for some clear patterns to emerge in the Xbox Player Voice feedback forum, with the clear-cut leading request being bringing back Xbox console exclusives. A player named Carlos Hernandez shared a request to bring them back, claiming that Xbox isn’t selling enough consoles because there’s no reason to buy them when the games can be bought and played on competing systems. Within a day, that request has received nearly 10,000 upvotes, and over a thousand comments.
Because console makers make money by selling consoles, and exclusive titles are bait meant to entice players to buy into the platform? It seems like it lines up really well with how Xbox makes its money, but I don’t see how players benefit at all.
I’m not saying every comment is fake; I’m sure some people on that forum genuinely feel strongly about Halo or whatever remaining an Xbox exclusive, but that can’t possibly be their number one most important thing they want Xbox to do. I don’t have any evidence but my gut says there’s some skullduggery going on. I don’t think it would be too hard for Microsoft to manipulate a forum they control either, and the incentives seem pretty clearly aligned with Microsoft. It’s just very convenient for them that this article exists.
Consoles are typically loss leaders. They make money on the games, accessories, etc. If Microsoft dropped exclusives, it means more money making games with less money losing consoles… It’s purely a business profitability move, not a gamer move.
Sony probably realized people would much prefer Steam and PC overPS and saw a drop in console sales which hurt game sales. So they’re back tracking to exclusives to being back money.
See Microsoft is software where Sony is hardware. That’s why Xbox is dying. Like Sega. Just focused on software and IPs…
I personally do not believe Microsoft would control this in some way, or try to manipulate the public view with fake posts or replies. It is possible, and it would be characteristic of Microsoft. And there is even a motive to do so, in order to get back to exclusives and say “look we listen to the community”.
But to me, having a motive isn’t enough to make me believe. So without strong evidence that Microsoft is pushing this and manipulating the forum of user voice, I will not believe that… for now. And trust me, I’m not much of a Microsoft fan at all. Don’t take this as a defense of corporation. I just can’t believe everything by just having a motive.