Games Inbox: Will Xbox start having exclusives again?

The Tuesday letters page thinks trying to sell Call Of Duty: Zombies separately is a bad idea, as one reader is not upset to see the back of Phil Spencer.

Games Inbox is a collection of our readers’ letters, comments, and opinions. To join in with the discussions yourself email gamecentral@metro.co.uk

No way back
My first reaction to the new Xbox boss hinting at a return to exclusives is that she didn’t understand the issue and/or was knowingly hinting at something she knew wasn’t going to happen, just to try and win over fans. That seems straight out of the usual Microsoft playbook, with their desperation for people to like them, and it’s absolutely not something you’d see from Sony or Nintendo.

But in reality I don’t see how they can. If you made something like Fable an Xbox exclusive how many people are actually going to buy it, given it’s on Game Pass day one? Microsoft needs to make money off their games and they can’t do that when Xbox Series X/S sales are so bad. They also can’t wait till the next gen because the RAM shortages mean that’s not going to happen soon enough.

There is no sensible way to bring back exclusives on Xbox and the only unsensible way is to sell the games at a loss, which is the sort of money wasting I’m pretty sure Microsoft has had enough of by this point.
Lemmy

Robo CEO
I initially misread your headline yesterday, ‘Phil Spencer replaced by AI expert as Xbox changes entire management line-up’ due to not noticing for a moment that the headline continued on the next line after the phrase ‘AI’.

For that brief instant it bizarrely didn’t seem that implausible.
ameisa (PSN ID)

GC: Somehow it’s never the execs who are in danger of being replaced with AI, despite the fact that would probably make more sense.

Exaggerated position
Well, Mr Phil Spencer has been given his cards at Xbox, just like the ones he sacked. I wonder if he was pushed or he jumped and as for who is taking over, don’t think anyone would be too worried at Sony or Nintendo.

The only problem with sacking Phil is it’s about 10 years too late. He spent $69 billion on Activision Blizzard and the first full Call Of Duty game under Xbox was a flop. They bought Bethesda for $7.5 billion just so Starfield wasn’t on Sony’s console and that was a flop and is meant to be coming to PlayStation after all.

The only game I have played from Xbox is Indiana Jones And The Great Circle. I know I said I’d never buy an Xbox game but it was a present from the missus and it was so bad it was good, if you know what I mean.
David

GC: No, we don’t. And underperforming doesn’t mean a game is a flop.

Email your comments to: gamecentral@metro.co.uk

Making cuts
I don’t get that report about Call Of Duty. I can easily believe that Activision will try and sell Zombies as a separate game (and that no one will buy it – it’d have to be free-to-play or nothing) but what was the stuff about Microsoft wanting faster development?

They get a new game every single year, which almost no other game but sports sims do. I know there’s a question about how much the new Xbox boss knows about games, but she’s not started yet. So who are all these dumbos that think you can just press a button and make games quicker? The Call Of Duty games always seem to be made in less than five years, when it really should be more, so what are you going to get if you rush it out even quicker?

No Zombies mode I guess is the answer, but somehow I don’t think that’s going to go down too well with players that are already fed up with the way the series is being run.
Bantor

MovieCentral
I know you guys are pretty busy just keeping up with games, but would you ever consider starting a TV show and film review section for games that have been adapted? I think a review coming from people that actually played the game would give a clearer review than some film student that never made it in the industry.

GameCentral is the only site I read for game reviews and 9 out of 10 times we are in agreement on scores, early God Of Wars being the exemption.
Bobwallett

GC: Thanks, we do usually do some kind of article on the big name ones but Metro already has its own dedicated film and TV reviews. And to be honest we haven’t been particularly interested by any live action video game adaptations.

You win some, you lose some
I’ve got to say thank you for your article on the Virtual Boy games that have popped up on the Nintendo Switch subscription.

I remember it being released almost out of nowhere back in the mid ‘90s.

I also remember the eye-watering cost of the device even after it was discontinued. Having said that, I always had a passing curiosity for the console. I’ve not yet committed to the Switch 2 and your article mentioned that I could still use my Nintendo Labo VR headset on my Switch 1 to play it. So, I got it out of my games room (yes, I have a man cave of stuff nobody wants).

I was not in the mood to wait weeks for the postman to drop it off to my house but as your article stated it would work fine with my Labo VR.

So I took the plunge, as it was a lot cheaper than buying the actual console itself.

Anyway, thank you, VR has always been the next best thing for gaming and that still rings true to this day.

Those games are over 30 years old and if truth be told, the 3D effect was pretty impressive, it’s just a shame it didn’t take off. In a gaming world where production companies will only back safe bets, I have to say kudos to Nintendo for trying to push the envelope.

Not every game is a hit but it’s definitely worth the try if you have the means.
freeway 77

Altering the deal
When I went on the Xbox app last week, to check my reward points towards a £10 Xbox gift card, it went down from 56% or 57% one day to the next day 53%. I thought there was a problem with my phone or Xy xbox account but then the penny dropped a few seconds later and I realised that the
amount of points you need to get £10 has gone up again.

I never saw an announcement for that on Twitter or anything.
Andrew J.

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Single format
Firstly, my heart goes out to Bluepoint Games and the developers losing their jobs, a sad end to a proven great studio.

I’ve always found the discourse around Sony and PlayStation sort of fascinating, as summed up in the recent Reader’s Feature’s hot take. I recently upgraded to PlayStation 5, thanks to the pre-Christmas price cuts and I have to say the lack of first party, triple-A single-player games, and Sony’s ability to churn them out, isn’t something I think about when I’m playing Cyberpunk 2077 or Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth.

I don’t think the tens of millions on Roblox or Fortnite spend time wondering what Naughty Dog are doing either. I’m not sure why people feel great games only count if they’re exclusive? It seems a very old-fashioned idea given the current state of the industry where mega budget games need to be made as widely available as possible.

A lot of the discourse around consoles right now, between hardcore gamers, seems to assume everyone has a default PC to play games on, that sits in the corner like a washing machine or microwave, and these dedicated machines from Sony or Nintendo are added extras (the reader at the weekend owned a PlayStation 5, Switch 2 and PC – as if that is normal) when the reality for most people couldn’t be further from the truth.

The console is the only way they game, so any game ‘is exclusive’ since they only have one way of playing it and that’s the machine hooked up to the living room TV.

I think it would help everyone if us hyper-engaged gamer types realised the rest of the market isn’t like us, and most people only have one platform that plugs into the TV, and they don’t think about it until they turn it on to pour a few hours a week into whatever.
Marc

GC: The idea that games need to be made as widely available as possible to make a profit is primarily a narrative pushed by Microsoft. It’s certainly never been the case for Nintendo and Sony’s commitment to the PC is limited at best.

Inbox also-rans
Can I be the nerd and point out that Kitana was not in the first Mortal Kombat movie, which was based solely on the first game, so I’m not sure that music really fits (great performance, I loved it!).
Lumpy

I’m going to admit I have never seen or heard of Sarah Bond until this day. I don’t know what she used to do at Xbox but given the state of things at the moment I can only assume she wasn’t very good at it.
Busch

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The small print
New Inbox updates appear every weekday morning, with special Hot Topic Inboxes at the weekend. Readers’ letters are used on merit and may be edited for length and content.

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