Minecraft, Diablo IV, Call of Duty Mobile, Call of Duty: Warzone, canonical Call of Duty games, The Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout 76, Overwatch 2, all King titles, Game Pass (accessible from Xbox, PC, systems mobile and all other compatible screens) are just some of the games or products of Xbox present on platforms other than its consoles. With the acquisition of Bethesda and Activision Blizzard King in particular, the Redmond house has acquired a large amount of titles multiplatform which it must manage as such.
As often happens in the world of video games, however, reiterating such obvious things seems almost offensive to those who simply don't want to accept reality, because sick of console war. And the reality is that Xbox is not at risk of becoming a multiplatform publisher, but it already is in fact one. And it is because it already has many multiplatform titles in its catalog and others will arrive in the future (think of the new Call of Duty).
Some will say that many obtained them following the acquisitionswhich doesn't change the situation one iota: by buying studios and publishers with multiplatform games and keeping them as such, it has strengthened its position as Multi-platform publisher.
The state of things
Being a multiplatform publisher doesn't mean that Xbox will publish all the games it produces on all platforms. He will certainly make his evaluations game by game and will tend to favor the Game Passwhich is its point of reference, increasingly giving Xbox hardware the role of target for development and privileged, but not unique, access to its ecosystem (as explained in unsuspecting times by Phil Spencer himself).
It must also be said that many, when talking about multiplatform, only take into consideration the now narrow traditional market, from which paradoxically they also exclude the PC. So just PlayStation, Nintendo and Xbox consoles. The rest is not seen as a “platform” because it probably does not fall within the scope of the console war, despite the fact that for years now the most popular gaming environment has been another (see mobile) and the majority of the sector's investments end up there.
Xbox can therefore ask its development studios to take mobile needs into consideration (controls, text sizes) when creating their games and no one bats an eye (indeed, many don't even know it), but if it is year old game, read Hi-Fi Rush, bait on a console that is seen as the “enemy”, open heaven. Here comes the talk of identity, betrayal and the end of the universe as we know it.
In short, the market has expanded and changed over the years, but there are those who still live in it small ancient world made up of illusory certainties, such as the value of exclusivity, where for example the now very cited increase in the production costs of triple A (consequently also double A) is making it increasingly problematic to have the limited potential audience of a single platform.
This is an editorial written by a member of the editorial team and is not necessarily representative of the editorial line of Multiplayer.it.
#Xbox #multiplatform #publisher #accept
