Xbox has been going through it this year as seemingly each and every decision it's made with both its hardware and software has been met with criticism.
This criticism isn’t misplaced either, some very silly decisions have been made and Xbox users are rightfully upset with how the brand has been managed recently.
The big problem at the moment is Xbox Game Pass as last week it was announced the subscription service would receive yet another price-hike, with the “silver-lining” being more add-ons such as Fortnite Crew, something that’s only relevant to Fortnite players.
In light of all of this some rumours from NeoGaf have been going around that Xbox as we know it is dead, and after all the complaints and low interest from gamers the company is finally embracing a full third-party business strategy. This would mean making more of its exclusives available on other consoles, and cancelling its plans for additional hardware.
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Microsoft has since made a statement regarding these rumours saying the plans for Xbox’s future, specifically new consoles, are still ongoing.
The statement was delivered to WindowsCentral and read: “We are actively investing in our future first-party consoles and devices designed, engineered and built by Xbox. For more details, the community can revisit our agreement announcement with AMD.”
This is great news for those that want to keep supporting Xbox through its hardware but I’m sure many would argue that’s not Xbox’s biggest problem right now.
A new console is great when there are games to play on it, and while the Nintendo Switch 2 received criticism for its price and lack of launch titles, many Nintendo fans bought it knowing they were getting an exclusive library.
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Xbox doesn’t really have that anymore as with each passing year more and more titles previously exclusive to Xbox hardware have been cropping up on other systems, and the games that would have been solely exclusive seem to be getting cancelled left, right and centre.
At the time of writing it doesn’t look like there are any plans to address Xbox Game Pass either, but subscribers have taken matters into their own hands by simply cancelling their memberships en masse.
There were so many cancellations that the online webpage crashed, as Xbox fans voted with their wallets rather than just their words.
Topics: Xbox, Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, Microsoft