Everything is NOT an Xbox
A year or so ago, I finished Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on my PlayStation 5. Sit with that sentence for a second. A game published by Microsoft, made by a studio Microsoft owns, running on a Sony console in my basement. A few years ago, that would have been unthinkable. But it was the whole idea behind what Microsoft was doing, and I had a name for it: everything is an Xbox.
They basically said as much themselves. There was an ad campaign — "This is an Xbox" — pointing at a TV, a phone, a handheld, the cloud, and telling you each one was an Xbox. The strategy behind it was Game Pass, multi-platform releases, and what they called a "broader portfolio of content." You could play on a PC, a Mac, your phone, and, sure, an actual Xbox.
I was the target audience, and I liked it.
I own a PS5. My kids own an Xbox. I pay for Game Pass Ultimate — about $23 a month — mostly for them. And the strategy worked on me. I got Indiana Jones without ever buying Microsoft's box. I played 12 Minutes on my Mac through Game Pass, on a machine that has no business being a game console. I never once felt like I was missing out because I was in a PlayStation household. If you'd told teenage me that Xbox and PlayStation would blur together like this, I wouldn't have believed you.
So I was a fan. I want to say that up front, because Microsoft is now resetting — after layoffs, studio closures, and canceled games — and it's easy to pile on with hindsight. I thought it was a good bet. I still want to understand why it didn't work. But I have some opinions.
Why I think it didn't work
First, the games didn't drive enough users. People buy a PlayStation for its exclusives — Uncharted, God of War, The Last of Us, the games I've written about loving before. Fewer people buy an Xbox for the same reason, and the multi-platform strategy quietly removed even more of the reasons to. I'm not saying Microsoft's games didn't find a big audience — I honestly don't know the numbers. I'm saying "big" apparently wasn't big enough, and game development is brutally expensive.
Second, nobody actually wants everything to be an Xbox. That sounds harsh, but the pitch undercut itself. If the whole point of Game Pass is that you can play anywhere, then the Xbox itself — the thing that made someone an "Xbox person" — becomes optional. And the real Xbox fans want to play on an Xbox first and everything else second. Telling them the box doesn't matter lowers the value of the very thing you're selling.
Third — and this is the one I keep circling back to — "a broader portfolio of content" reads like an admission. To me, that phrase means Microsoft bought a lot of companies and didn't get the return they expected. I won't pretend I know why any specific studio is closing; I'm not close enough to it. But you don't reset this hard on a strategy that's paying off. And again: game development is expensive, and buying your way to a portfolio is the most expensive version of it.
What I think happens next.
My guess is Microsoft goes back to the old model — good hardware, exclusive games, with an online component (Game Pass) layered on top.
Will it work? I have doubts, and they have nothing to do with strategy and everything to do with timing. Resetting toward big-budget exclusives and premium hardware, right as gaming has become more expensive than ever, is a real gamble. Games are creeping toward $80. There are rumors that component costs will drive up next-generation console prices. And you don't even need the rumors — look at right now: current consoles cost more in 2026 than they did at launch in 2020. I've written before that GTA 6's price tag is a preview, not a rule, and I still think the whole industry is heading toward higher prices.
So Microsoft is betting on premium at a time when premium is getting harder to sell. Maybe that's backward. Maybe it's the only honest move they had left.
Either way, I hope it works. Not because I'm an Xbox guy — I'm the PlayStation-in-the-basement, Game Pass for the kids guy. But my kids play on that Xbox, and competition is what keeps all of this good. A healthy Xbox makes my PlayStation better. Everything being an Xbox was never going to last. I hope something is still an Xbox when the dust settles.