Xbox Has Clear Next-Gen Decision to Make, 'Merger has to Happen'

Following what some believe to be a very disappointing showing from Microsoft at the 2025 Game Awards, fans are once again pushing for the next-gen Xbox to fully merge with PC platforms (even though it seems like Microsoft is already planning to do exactly that).

It’s not exactly been a great year for the Xbox brand. Between layoffs, poor sales, Xbox Game Pass price increases, and Microsoft execs’ obsession with AI, fans’ faith in the next-gen follow-up to the Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X is at an all-time low.

However, as far as Xbox users are concerned, there is one issue that trumps all of the others: a bunch of upcoming games are outright skipping an Xbox release.

This was already an issue for the fanbase beforehand, but the underwhelming lack of Xbox-related announcements at the 2025 Game Awards has clearly exacerbated things.

One very dedicated user over on the r/xbox subreddit has even collated all of the announcements at the event and broken them down by platform, and fans aren’t too pleased with the results.

As it turns out, roughly a dozen games that were announced or had trailers at the event are skipping Xbox Series consoles in favour of the PlayStation 5. Some of these, like Saros for instance, were to be expected, but a few of the announcements were a surprise to some Xbox fans.

The Xbox Windows 11 full-screen experience update, Microsoft

“Phantom Blade 0 trailer looked amazing, it’s too bad it isn’t coming to Xbox. Nioh 3 also looked great but that was already expected never to come to Xbox”, commented user akbarock.

“That about sums it up. 29 (+ South of Midnight) on Xbox out of a possible 60. 10 more on PS5. The type of stuff I worried Latitude could lead to. The merger with PC cannot happen sooner, for the sake of Xbox libraries and Xbox players.” replied user DeoGame.

“Yeah this event actually made me realize just how much devs prioritize steam and pc in general now…” commented user CoyoteBeautiful4605.

The “merger” that the commenters are talking about is in reference to Microsoft’s attempts to merge both Xbox and Windows/PC platforms into one dedicated platform, which would (hopefully) lead to fewer PC releases skipping out on an Xbox release.

This is something that Microsoft have been toying with for a while now. Obviously their PC Game Pass subscription is a sort of half-measure in that regard, but they’ve also recently announced an “aggregated gaming library” feature for the Xbox PC app and the “Xbox full screen experience” for Windows 11 that “introduces a controller-navigable UI that brings an immersive, console-like experience to Windows 11 PC”.

Fans think this is a hint towards Microsoft’s plans for the next-gen Xbox, as it implies that a fully-merged Xbox/PC ecosystem is going to be their focus moving forward.

Whether or not fans still have faith in the brand moving into the next generation is an entirely different issue altogether, though…