Some third-party video game publishers are reportedly unsure why they should continue making and supporting games Xbox game console Due to poor sales in Europe.
in a new podcast Game Industry NetworkChris Dring, the person in charge of the store, explained that in 2024 Game Developers Conference (GDC) He’s heard “flat” Xbox hardware sales in Europe have some companies questioning the point of continuing to support the Microsoft brand and its various consoles amid a shrinking audience and lack of growth.
“The other thing I heard from a very well-known company and a less well-known company is that Xbox is just doing flat in Europe,” Derling said on the podcast. “You can follow our monthly coverage of the gaming market, and you can see that Xbox sales are declining, they were declining all of last year, and they are declining even more this year.”
Derling further said that one major company (which reportedly released a “big game” last year) said, “I don’t know why we should bother supporting it.”
“We mentioned in a previous podcast that we heard that European retailers are considering or have already reduced Xbox inventory on their shelves —Hardware, games, stuff like that– Now you’ve got publishers, third-party publishers, “We put a lot of effort into trying to create a Series S version and an X version of the game, but honestly, the market for us is PC and PS5,” Dring said.
Publishers are starting to wonder if Xbox ports are worth it
According to Dring, from what he heard at GDC 2024, Xbox is “really in trouble as a hardware manufacturer.”
“I didn’t really take into account that some developers and publishers might say ‘Yeah, what’s the point?'” That’s when you might lose it. “
“They need to make sure it makes sense to continue making versions of their games [Xbox],” Delin explained.
For years, we’ve been hearing about Microsoft downplay importance Number of Xbox game consoles sold by the company try to keep up and Sales of Nintendo and Sony’s respective devices. In 2023, Microsoft admitted in court documents that it Lost the console war in 2001 And still losing to this day.We’ve even seen data showing PS5 sales exceed Xbox 2:1.
But, like Dring, I’ve always assumed that publishers would continue to make games for the Xbox as long as Microsoft was willing to keep making and selling boxes.
However, sales in Europe appear to be flat, and Microsoft isn’t as committed to Xbox hardware as it once was –For example, releasing previously exclusive games on PS5— As Dehlin explains in the podcast, this has led to confusion about what’s going on at Microsoft. Sure, some people are still buying Xbox consoles, but if that number continues to decline and the audience doesn’t grow or shrink, publishers looking to cut costs may decide in 2024 that Xbox ports are no longer worth it. or beyond.
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