“Being an Xbox user sure feels like a rip off at this point”

It looks like Xbox as we knew it may be over as the company moves to embrace a new chapter – though it’s not a chapter everyone is on board with.

Mind you, the writing has been on the wall for a while now. Xbox’s latest big push is the “this is an Xbox” ad campaign, which pushes the fact that, thanks to streaming, you can play Xbox games on a range of devices – no Xbox needed.

There’s also the fact that exclusives like Sea Of Thieves, Hi-Fi Rush have now been made available on PlayStation 5, while Indiana Jones And The Great Circle isn’t far behind and Starfield looks more likely every day.

All of which to say, Xbox as it was – a traditional console manufacturer with its own exclusives – is over.

The current evidence speaks for itself, but notable Xbox insider Jez Corden recently took to Twitter to suggest Xbox is completely moving away from permanent console exclusives.

“It’s because they don’t want to just mandate it on teams that aren’t set up yet for multiplatform simultaneous development,” Corden said in response to a Twitter user asking why Xbox haven’t officially come out and said as much yet, before adding: “But the era of Xbox having permanent console exclusives is over.”

As a relatively casual observer with no skin in the game, I see this as a good thing. I should stress I own an Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 so it really makes no odds to me if The Elder Scrolls VI is exclusive to one or ‘tother.

Still, there are plenty of gamers who see this shift as a negative one.

“Imagine telling someone back in December 2023 that Xbox would transition into a third-party publisher,” wrote on user on Reddit.

“I solely blame the Activision Blizzard deal for this,” another added. “This got investors to look at the books more and they realized that they could make more money having games everywhere. If Xbox stopped at Bethesda, I don’t see the future we have now.”

A third wrote: “It’s honestly kind of hilarious how Xbox has spent nearly a decade languishing without any significant exclusives, to the point of buying several major studios to compensate. Then when they finally have some good games on the horizon they say ‘yeah, never mind, let’s dip on the console market and become a 3rd party publisher’. Being an Xbox user sure feels like a rip off at this point.”