In case you have not heard, Scalebound was cancelled today by Microsoft. This has left me feeling sort of empty inside for multiple reasons. Is Platinum in trouble? Is Xbox in trouble? Platinum could be saved for another blog. I'd also like to apologize ahead of time for my english. I'm still working to get better at it, so please bare with me.

Phil Spencer was appointed to be head of Xbox a couple of years ago. A lot of people, including myself, thought this was a great thing. For the most part, he has done a great job. Xbox One's are selling well now, Xbox One backwards compatibility is a great feature, and Xbox Live continues to be the best console online service.

With all of that said, one could argue that the quality of Microsoft Studios games has gone down. Recore possibly wasn't finished, Quantum Break was arguably Remedy's worst game, Halo 5's campaign was critically panned, and Gears 4 is more of the same (I think it's the worst numbered Gears game). With the downward trend in quality, sales have also gone down for their big titles (Gears 4 and Halo 5).

Now Scalebound has been cancelled. So where does Xbox go from here? As of right now, Xbox has Sea of Thieves, Halo Wars 2, maybe Crackdown 3, State of Decay 2 and probably an unannounced Forza Motorsport game. What do those games all have in common? They're all multiplayer first games. Even games that were cancelled, Fable Legends and now Scalebound were multiplayer-centric. They basically have no single player games on the pipeline, unless they have secret studios that are working on other projects. I think that is really unlikely.

So since Microsoft is clearly getting out of the single player games business, what does this mean? I think Minecraft is the answer to this question. Minecraft is a phenomenon. It is a game that has been playable for years, but continues to be on the sales charts. They continue to update it and people continue to play it. It is one of the prime examples of "games as services". PC games such as League of Legends, Dota 2, Overwatch, TF2, CSGO, etc.. are continuing to be updated and they are being rewarded by people playing a lot. This correlates with people spending more money on these games (skins, blind boxes, keys, hats). They only want to create games that can last a long time because their other games are not selling well.

This leads to the play anywhere feature being added to the Xbox brand this year. They are trying to branch the PC and Xbox communities with their games. By making games as a service, Microsoft can have people play on PC and Xbox One. They can carry their saves and progress between machines. Most importantly, they will spend more money on these games.

So now that we've established this, what do I think of this? I've never been a Halo guy, so a new Halo doesn't really speak to me; especially after Halo 5's campaign and Gears 4 was not that great. This is leaving me at a crossroads with the Xbox and I'm sure I am not the only one. None of their "console exclusive" games are that interesting because they are mostly tired franchises. I don't know how they can win me back.

With the Scorpio on the horizon, I can only hope that Microsoft does their best to create the best possible games because then their games as a service strategy will not succeed.

As much as I like the Xbox One's leadership team, it has been disappointing to see them continue their late-era Xbox 360 strategy of relying on third parties to buoy the platform. Ever since the severing of ties with the "Killer B's", namely Bungie, BioWare, and Bizarre, Microsoft exclusive titles have been few and far between. Unfortunately, I doubt that will change in the near future with Xbox One sales surpassing PlayStation 4 sales on a month-to-month basis. Phil Spencer has found himself a winning formula and I think he's content to stick with it.

@darth_navster: I also wonder how much funding Microsoft is actually giving the Xbox division with the hardware struggling to sell as well as the PS4. It's disappointing since Microsoft has made great games, but I feel like they've been up and down for a while now.

Overall spending is up... On DLC and microtransactions. Not so much on individual titles or hardware. Games like Destiny and GTA V are doing real well over a long period of time because of it, whereas games like Final Fantasy XV are under-performing despite being near the top of the charts when they release.

On top of that, focusing on "Windows 10 gaming" rather than "Xbox gaming" means they can reach more people and get them to spend more money. The Xbox console is just one platform that Windows 10 is connected to. There are phones, tablets, and computers that can also be targeted. I said immediately after their E3 presentation that they'd start shifting focus from their console to their OS and I think they've been proving that correct ever since. I don't think the Xbox console will go away, but I do see it slowly fading into the background.

As much as people hate to accept it, the "games as a service" strategy IS succeeding, and in a way Microsoft is being incredibly smart in going all in on it. Even if it pisses everyone off.

@mindbullet: Can games as a service keep a console afloat though? I know some of this is subjective, but I don't feel like the games they are putting out are good enough to survive.

@colonel_pockets: It's not about keeping the console afloat, it's about bring in money for Microsoft. But yes, that's what they need to figure out going forward. Whether they can actually figure out a strategy or not will determine how things go. Fact is though, their overall growth has been decreasing lately, and the only real increase in steady revenue they've seen has been in service games.

@mindbullet: Yes, and that is exactly what I am worried about. I guess I didn't communicate it well in my write up.

I get that you didn't like Halo 5 or Gears 4 but from following their coverage, overwhelmingly what I heard was that Halo 5 is much better than 4 and Gears 4 is rock solid. I've also heard how happy people are w/ Halo 5 multiplayer as of late which is a good sign. So I think you're being a bit unfair and dismissive of those titles. Also, yes PS4 is so dominate right now but the Xbox numbers are really not that bad, the problem is equally an issue of perception. With Sony getting complacent yet again on top, Microsoft can make real moves. A lot of people also put the online component as a matter of high priority and PS really hasn't improved much in that front. While I do think Sony will stay #1 for the foreseeable future, MS can comfortably stay alive.

@liquiddragon: I realized that I didn't communicate my final message in my write up. Do you think Gears 4 and Halo 5 are good enough to keep the console afloat though?

@colonel_pockets: I obviously don't have the numbers but I'm sure MS would be happy to pit the numbers of does titles against any Sony exclusive. Games come and go, people don't expect them to keep XBO afloat. Which PS title is doing that?

I'm currently really enjoying my Xbox1s a lot more than my PS4 so this weird turn has been kinda disheartening.

@liquiddragon: I think Sony has been able to lean on games like Call of Duty and Destiny to keep the console afloat while they continue to delay their 1st party games.

@skullpanda1: Yup, I agree. The Xbox One is a cool system that is continually being given less and less reasons to own.

@colonel_pockets: yeah, you're right but it's the same situation as last gen. The leading platform wins in multiplat war but people are playing those on the XBO one as well. As of right now, the industry can sustain 3 console makers. I'm not saying MS can't do better, I'm saying I'm not worried.

huh? this isn't even close to true. they sold more for like 3 npd months before the holidays in the slow months. Those tiny differences in npd are completely wiped out by ps4 sales worldwide where sony always sell a ton more and ps4 just had a huge holiday season selling 6.2 million consoles. (which means ps4 just sold 1/4 of the total estimated xbox one lifetime sales in 2 months) The gap is only getting wider every month.

@liquiddragon: I hope you are right.

@rangers517: This is what I am talking about. Can Microsoft stay afloat?

I know what you mean. I'm among the few people (in Europe) who got an original Xbox instead of a PS2 and who also bought a 360 at launch. That said there is really no reason for me to by a Xbox One since it's simply lacking any games that I have to play. I was really excited about Forza Horizon 3, however, since I have a fairly powerful PC I didn't have to bother with the console version.

When they announced Phantom Dust before the launch of the Xbox One I was certain that I would get one. But with all the games coming to PC now there really is no reason for me to buy the console. I did buy a PS4 about a year ago for a couple of exclusives like Bloodborne, Disgaea 5, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Last Guardian, Gravity Rush 2 and so on. Without exclusives Xbox One has no appeal to me. (god how I would love a new and or remastered Phantom Dust)

@stefan: I'd argue that there isn't really a good reason to buy a Xbox One right now. It's kind of crazy and disappointing.

Honestly, that game looked pretty bad even if it's a bit suprising they flat out cancelled it i can definitely see why. I think xbox is banking on getting into the pc market, but I feel it will fail unless they finally decide to either get rid of the shitty windows game store crap or at least release on other marketplaces as well (mainly steam). Right now they seem to be trying to make games on the windows store run better than other places by locking optimization features behind it(probably not going to help that much but still pretty shitty to do) which probably won't win over many pc fans when it happens. In the end they banked way to heavy on the 360 success and ended up overextending everywhere, and taking any risks with popular ip's just isn't going to happen anymore.

@colonel_pockets: so you think Xbox is done for? If were looking at a console future that's completely forward compatible like people have been saying because of the x86 architecture, things are only going to grow and grow and people will continue to invest in these ecosystems to the point it only makes sense to stay with it. I think that means whether it's Steam, PSN, or XBL, they'll all be a viable marketplace to sell and buy games.

I guess it comes down to how much Microsoft wants to keep pumping money into the struggling xbox division. Obviously they have a ton of money but at some point why keep propping up a division that they have to hide in their financial reports by combining it with a bunch of other stuff. Right now they're trying to integrate it more into their other services like windows 10 but there have been a lot of reports from insiders that the games xbox is putting into that windows store are barely selling anything at all. I wonder when they start just putting everything on Steam

So I guess I don't really know. It definitely isn't looking good now and I can't see Scorpio really changing anything. ( I really don't believe a higher priced xbox one is going to be some huge driver of sales)

@oursin_360: I didn't think that Scalebound looked good either, but that sort of follows my point that their 1st party output's quality has been down lately. How can games as a service keep a console afloat?

The included UHD drive means it will likely stay plugged in for a long time, but none of my local rental shoppes have UHD discs yet. So I've only seen 3 UHD movies on disc so far...

Well MS could buy Riot and just rebrand to "League of Legends Box" hahaha

@rangers517: Yeah, it's probably just going to be similar to a Steam machine. The difference is that it runs the Windows 10 store.

@liquiddragon: Maybe not Xbox as a store, but as a console? I don't know. There seem to be a lot of things up in the air at the moment.

@rangers517: @skullpanda1:Yeah, I just don't see Gears and Halo being able to keep an entire console profitable. They're not nearly as big as they once were.

Xbox is fine. Scalebound looked like a mediocre game at best for a long time. Don't read too much into it.

MS is paying the price for failing to invest at the end of the 360 era, they should have broaden their audience while they were neck and neck with Sony. They keep green lighting games that either will never sell on the Xbox or as a token gesture to appeal to a new crowd, Sunset Overdrive & Scalebound just like Lost Oddesy & Blue Dragon before were half steps destined to fail. First party doesn't even need to make money as long as they break even and move console which Halo and Gear's don't do anymore, none of Sony's or Nintendo's output is game as service yet they continue to hit even Knack did, MS need to rejuvenate / reinvent their IP not appeal to core as they did with both Halo / Gears.

@jakob187: I think it's worth questioning what the big picture is for the Xbox now. This is their 3rd cancelled game of the last couple of years (that we know of). Two of those games were in development for a handful of years too.

Xbox is just okay, if you really want, get an original xbox, throw a 250gb hd in there and play timesplitters and psyops... Better idea than buying an Xbox one..

I would slightly disagree with the sentiment that their flagship titles have declined in quality (or their new IP this gen for that matter). It gets thrown around quite a bit, but I would challenge anyone to find console shooters that compete with the gameplay mechanics and feature sets Halo and Gears have had to offer for years. Sure, there have been bumps in the road for hardcore fans, when developers are perceived to be milking a franchise or adding changes that don't improve the core gameplay. It's also important to remember how different the market was back when Halo dominated due to lack of competition and its community features being ahead of the curve.

Which brings me to what I think MS should focus on for the future with Halo 6 - Forge and custom games. They should bite the bullet and accept that the story they've cobbled together has not panned out, go back to the drawing board with their Promethean enemies and combat sandbox, and make Halo 6 the cap to the trilogy that Halo 3 was for Bungie. Halo 5 and its post-launch support has shown some glimmer of hope for this to come true, but 343's general incompetence in the past means they could easily fuck this up as well.

I'm optimistic about Sea of Thieves as the social multiplayer aspect seems to be the core focus. And let's be honest, Scalebound always looked bad and is better off cancelled.

@dharmabum: I can't speak for Gears but Halo 5 one year later doesn't have feature parity with day 0 Reach dispite the addition of microtransactions. I doubt old Halo fans will come back for six even if 343i knock it out the park with H6 the last three Halo's have been disappointing in their own way, all of my Halo buddies play Destiny most of them on PS4 too judging by sales were not alone.

@thepanzini: I adore Halo Reach and miss its elegant menus, but I don't know if that's true (the thing about feature parity) when H5's Forge is undoubtedly the best its ever been and the recent custom games browser is something even Bungie never implemented. I won't defend the lack of basic features at H5's launch or a lot of 343's mishandling of the franchise in general, though.

For the hardcore multiplayer folks, Reach was the downfall of the competitive community, Halo 4 was the nail in the coffin, while if anything Halo 5 has revived the scene better than ever. 343 and to some extent The Coalition also (due to their egregious RNG crate practices) are definitely on thin ice when it comes to expectations for the next entries in their respective franchises. Both developers have committed to the esports business model and I think their games are good enough to support such a thing, and the Scorpio factor makes it even more interesting.

@dharmabum: I think you might be right. I just don't see the excitement that there used to when a new Gears of War or Halo game was released. I think the blind boxes in Gears flat out suck, so I hope they are able to refine them since they're not going anywhere.

Microsoft has kinda never been big on single-player first party exclusives. Those are the kinds of games that made the Playstation and Nintendo, but what made the Xbox is, well, games as service. Xbox Live. There was nothing quite like Xbox Live on consoles back in the day. The PS2's online connectivity features really depended on the developer, but Xbox Live just did a whole hell of a lot for the accessibility and ease-of-use of online play for consoles (and arguably for PC - I have no doubt that Steam and Valve have taken more than a few cues from Xbox Live).

It has been a winning strategy for MS so far. The Xbox is a multiplayer, service-based console, and kind of always has been. People go to that console to play with their friends. MS doesn't appear to be having any problems keeping the console afloat, either - Halo 5 and Gears of War 4's microtransactions still sell pretty well, a lot of people still play Destiny and Call of Duty on that console and those games have microtransactions, there's a new Forza game every year and those have DLC and microtransactions, a lot of people still pay for Xbox Live, and there are plenty of F2P games available for it. Is it as popular as the PS4? No, but that doesn't mean that the Xbox One is having problems making money.

As far as Microsoft consolidating the Xbox and Windows brands - sure! I can see that doing well for them. They can get people to upgrade to Windows 10, they can keep people using Windows products, they can keep people playing Xbox games even if it isn't on an Xbox - I bet Microsoft won a few Gears of War and Forza fans by putting those games on the PC and now some of those fans will undoubtedly pay money for microtransactions.

For the record, I'm pretty sure that a lot of people think rather highly of Gears 4 and Halo 5. I remember both of those games getting pretty warm receptions from most people. Gears of War 4 hardly interests me, but Halo 4's campaign is fine - story's not great, but gameplay and set pieces are awesome - and the multiplayer for Halo 5 has been growing a lot from what I understand. I kind of need to get back into Halo 5, I was having a lot of fun with that multiplayer until I let my Xbox Live subscription go and I haven't gone back to it since.

If you're still primarily after single player experiences, the PS4, whatever Nintendo's doing, and the PC are still better destinations for you. Sony still seems concerned with making sure single player people have something to play - Persona 5, Disgaea 5, The Last of Us 2, Uncharted 4, and Ratchet and Clank are all single player focused PS4 games.

@colonel_pockets: I would agree that the excitement isn't the same as when Halo was known for setting industry standards and innovation (i.e. the original trilogy). Competition in the shooter space has become way more diverse and Halo has had an identity crisis ever since Modern Warfare swooped in and stole the show.

Edit: Halo/Gears are held to a higher standard of scrutiny because of their legacy, so a perceived dip in quality is usually because of higher expectations from their audience. The fact that no other console shooters compete with what these games have to offer (in terms of features and mechanics) means their developers have less incentive to push the industry forward like they used to, and sometimes they phone things in instead (ahem).

Halo and Gears and their multiplayer communities have survived long enough that I'm confident the Xbox will be fine going forward. I'll be playing until they shut down the servers or a better platform emerges.

Microsoft is doing just fine, It's been a monster since Nadella took over. Microsoft has the deepest pockets in the industry by a mile so not sure why you would be worried if they can stay afloat.

Also all this doom and gloom over Scalebound? Really? If they announced no more Halo or Gears there would be cause for concern but a new IP that was only shown off a couple times. Scalebound was probably 2017's ReCore, a game that would just be average.

At their height, Bungie and Epic were extremely talented studios. Microsoft doesn't have anything like that anymore. 343 Industries and The Coalition can put out respectable games, but there's something missing. It's like Microsoft is trying to force greatness with these studios, and that just doesn't work. True innovation needs to come together organically.

What I'm trying to say is that MS is a fucking toxic company that has no clue how to discover or nurture talent.

"With all of that said, one could argue that the quality of Microsoft Studios games has gone down. Recore possibly wasn't finished, Quantum Break was arguably Remedy's worst game, Halo 5's campaign was critically panned, and Gears 4 is more of the same (I think it's the worst numbered Gears game). With the downward trend in quality, sales have also gone down for their big titles (Gears 4 and Halo 5)."

All sorts of opinions stated in this paragraph. I'll just counteract with some of mine to note that not everyone feels the doom and gloom for Xbox that you do.

I fucking loved Quantum Break, and I've seen it hit plenty of top ten lists and honorable mentions for year end time. Hell, Dave Lang had it at #3. And it was my second favorite of the year!

Halo 5's campaign was super fun, and seems the biggest critique was the cliffhanger and the repetitive boss battles. The gameplay and multiplayer is the best in the series to me.

Gear 4 is more of the same, but I had forgotten how much fun the core gameplay is. I loved the game despite zero hype or expectations for it.

Is there anybody who thinks Scalebound looked really good? Solid games that are meeting their milestones don't get cancelled unless a publisher is out of money and can't get creditors to return their calls. I'm going to go out on a limb and say that's probably not a problem for Microsoft. It's much more likely that Scalebound was shaping up to be a substandard project that was so far behind schedule that bringing it to market would have been throwing good money after bad, as they say. The new leadership at Xbox seems smarter than the people they replaced but it will take a long while for us to see their stewardship bear fruit. I wouldn't take the cancellation of a game as a cause for worry. Start panicking when the launch of the Scorpio is as dissatisfying as the PlayStation 4 Pro was.

I feel MS fell into the same routine Nintendo did by leaning only on 2 or 3 franchises so much (Gears, Halo, Forza for MS and Mario, Zelda for nintendo). Of course Nintendo has been in games much longer so it took a bit longer for them to realize where the money was and abandon things like Metroid, Donkey Kong, Kirby, etc.

Scalebound looked bad, and I guess they saw how Re-core did and decided it was for the best.

I'm not sure what xbox players want from MS in terms of games. Do they want them to stay the course and give more Forza, Gears, Halo? Do they want MS to bring back the oldies like Fable, Viva Pinata, PGR? Or do they want MS to dump everything and just give them new IPs like they did back at the launch of the xbox and xbox 360?

I don't know what the future holds. But I hope the scorpio bring something new to the table. I want more Gears and Forza but I want some variety too....

I am seriously beginning to wonder what Microsoft's plan is for the Xbox for the next 2 years, because Sony seems to have a very solid line up of titles coming out just about throughout the entire year, and has already drummed up a significant amount of excitement for projects not coming for a while such as Death Stranding.

Microsoft has gotten smarter with the PC and how they sell their products to consumers there but the console side is getting concerning. It's not like Scalebound is the first cancellation they've done, and I'm still annoyed at them kicking out D4 to die.

They are really going to need to pull something amazing out for E3, especially to sell people on the idea of buying a Scorpio.

@zombie2011: I guess I should have clarified by saying Xbox instead of Microsoft. Can Xbox be able to sustain if it's just a Halo, Forza and Gears box?

@csl316: You're 100% right about the opinions, but I think I can argue that Halo and Gears don't have the same excitement around them as they once did.

@adequatelyprepared:That's the thing. I don't see them having anything up their sleeve. They have basically put all of their cards on the table and it hasn't really worked. Scorpio is really their last stand I feel like, which could be unfortunate.

@colonel_pockets: I would totally disagree with your opinion that MS are focusing solely on multiplayer games. Halo 5 and Gears 4 were mainly singleplayer experiences for me, and I'm sure that Halo Wars 2, Forza 7 and Crackdown 3 will be as well.

@adequatelyprepared: Sony have been much better hype-men than Microsoft recently. But it feels like they show and talk about games way earlier than Microsoft, and as such their catalogue seems much wider.

Watching the E3 press conferences in recent years it's felt to me like MS are mostly showing games that I'll be playing within the next year or two. Last E3, they announced games like Forza Horizon 3 and Dead Rising 4, which came out only months after. Sony on the other hand announced games like Spiderman, God of War, Detroit and Days Gone. None of which have even the vaguest of release dates as of yet.

With all the Xbox games that are actually worth getting coming out as Play Anywhere now (Forza Horizon 3, Gears 4, Sea of Thieves etc.) I really regret my Xbox purchase. Cannot think of a reason to own one at all anymore unless you don't have a PS4 or mid- to high-end PC.

Yeah it's a mess, Scalebound was the only Xbox exclusive I was interested in this year despite it not showing great at E3. It was more interesting than 'car game' 'halo rts' and 'another zombie game' Sea of Thieves could be cool but I havent enjoyed a Rare game in quite some time. (I havent played N&B) And I wouldnt be that surprised if Crackdown 3 got cancelled either.

Despite all the bad press Sony has had as of late (NMS, buggy pros, gimped mod support and spotty VR) they still have a lot more indie games and cool japanese games that arent coming out on the Xbox or PC. I want Microsoft to do well because competition is good but even if the Scorpio is a beast and somewhat cheap the system needs games that stand out.

@ayuoichi: Well not counting Sony exclusives like The Last Guardian, Let it Die didnt and neither is Yakuza 0 and Nioh. Square are the only company I can think of that are porting their games to PC and even then that's well after the fact. Fuck knows when FFXV is coming to PC.