OPINION: Xbox has faced consistent criticism (from myself included) for its lack of exclusives compared to PlayStation, and is likely the core reason why the PS5 is reportedly outselling the Xbox Series by such a large margin.
The Financial Times reports that the PS5 is currently outselling the Xbox Series X by nearly three-to-one margin. With little separating the two consoles in terms of hardware, the most obvious explanation for this lead is Sony’s greater lineup of first-party games.
I for one can say that the main reason I purchased the PS5 over the Xbox Series X was so I can play the likes of Marvel’s Spider-Man, God of War and the next Naughty Dog project on the first first day of release, as these are some of the highest rated game franchises of the last few years.
Microsoft has hit back with several acquisitions, most notably Bethesda and Activision Blizzard. While it’s far too early for Microsoft to launch any games for the latter, in 2023 it did see Bethesda-made console exclusives in the form of Starfield and Redfall.
However, these exclusive launches have seemingly not had the desired effect on Xbox console sales figures. The Financial Times reports that Xbox hardware sales fell about 15% from 2022 to 2023, while PS5 sales grew by a whopping 65% in the same period.
So how can Xbox close the gap? The most obvious answer is to simply improve the quality of its first-party games, but that’s easier said than done.
Sony (or more specifically, Insomniac Games) was devastated by a leak in December 2023, with private company data and personal files leaked to the public. Forbes reports that details on the budget of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 were revealed through this leak, totalling up to a jaw-dropping $300 million. This means that the latest Spider-Man game from Sony was even more expensive to make than any of the past Spider-Man movies.
If Xbox intends to seriously compete with Sony’s first-party offering, then you’d argue it will need to put its money where its mouth is and match these sky-high budgets. But then again, is that really sustainable?
In a bid to recoup all of the money spent on production, Sony now charges £70 for first-party games, such as Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, at launch. Meanwhile, Microsoft has committed itself to launching every first-party game on its Game Pass subscription service from day one, which only costs users £8.99/$10.99 per month for access to hundreds of games.
This is a bargain for gamers, but consequently means investing a lot of money on a single first-party game is a huge risk for Microsoft, unless it’s able to increase the subscription count of its Game Pass service tenfold.
And even taking Game Pass out of the equation, the smaller user base of the Xbox Series X and Series S compared to the PS5 also makes it a lot more difficult to generate a high number of sales for an exclusive game. Sony has sold over 50 units of the PS5, whereas the Xbox Series X/S apparently sold just over 21 million as of September 2023.
Even Sony has acknowledged that its console’s user base can be restrictive when attempting to turn a profit, and has so resorted to porting its first-party games over to PC in order to generate more sales. Xbox already shares its first-party library with PC, but by launching the likes of Starfield as a console exclusive, it’s missing out on potential sales of PS5 owners.
So now Xbox has been forced into a really difficult position. Does it keep trying to build its portfolio of exclusives and risk a financial hit due to the small user base of the Xbox, or does it launch all of its first-party games on rival platforms such as the PS5 and Nintendo Switch successor?
The biggest issue with the latter option is that there would no longer be an incentive for people to buy an Xbox console instead of a PlayStation. But I’d argue that the horse has already bolted when it comes to the console war, as PlayStation has become an uncatchable juggernaut. Instead, I’d argue that Microsoft should switch its attention to Game Pass.
Even if the likes of Starfield, Call of Duty, and Halo were all available on the PS5, plenty of people would likely still prefer to play them on Game Pass due to its incredible value for money. Paying for all three of those games would likely cost you £180 at the very least – it would take a 20-month subscription of Game Pass in order for your expenditure to hit that same figure.
Importantly though, making such games available on PS5 would increase both the sales and revenue of Xbox’s first-party games. This would allow Microsoft to justify bigger budgets for its first-party games, while still being confident that it will still make a profit. It could then reinvest the money made into further improving its first-party catalogue as well as the infrastructure of Game Pass.
Most gamers will feel that such a move is implausible. You’d never expect to see Mario or Kratos on a rival console, so why would Xbox do the same with Master Chief? But I’d argue that Game Pass has changed the landscape. Exclusives only make sense when you’re attempting to sell more consoles than your rivals, but that same logic doesn’t apply to Game Pass. Plus, it was once unimaginable to think of Sonic the Hedgehog on a Nintendo console, yet here we are.
Admittedly, making Xbox games multi-platform would probably see a further decline to Xbox console sales, but does that really matter? The age of consoles is slowly coming to an end, and it’s finally time for Xbox to focus all of its attention on Game Pass.
