How Can We Trust Anything Xbox Says Now?

By Paul Tassi Senior Contributor

Perfect Dark

There are certainly fluctuations of good and bad news all across the gaming industry, but more often than not as of late, the Xbox brand seems to be squandering its goodwill by saying one thing and then doing another over and over again.

This was brought up yet again with a slew of cancellations that brought up more examples of this, but looking back, this is a pattern, and the question now, is how are we supposed to trust anything Xbox says? In the wake of these widespread cancellations, Xbox said all the games it recently showcased in its last livestream were not going to be cancelled, which should elicit nothing more than a “yeah sure okay” at this point.

Some of the most prominent examples of this:

After the launch of Hi-Fi Rush, Aaron Greenberg, VP of Xbox Games marketing, said: “Hi‑Fi RUSH was a breakout hit for us and our players in all key measurements and expectations. We couldn’t be happier with what the team at Tango Gameworks delivered with this surprise release.” The studio, Tango Gameworks, was shut down a year later, and was only saved by a third-party purchase.

During its FTC trial, Microsoft presented a diagram attempting to prove that it would keep Call of Duty multiplatform, a key point of doubt. The idea was that existing huge franchises like that would stay multiplatform. Some current IPs that Microsoft has bought would be released on other platforms on a case-by-case basis. Then there would be a classification of games, original IPs like Starfield and Avowed, that would stay exclusive to Xbox. While that’s true for those two games so far, this concept has now joined a statement from Phil Spencer: “I do not see sort of red lines in our portfolio that say ‘thou must not.’”

Xbox chief Phil Spencer speaks on stage at the Microsoft Xbox E3 2017 Briefing, June 11, 2017 at the … More Galen Center in Los Angeles, California. The Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), which focuses on new products and technologies in electronic gaming systems and interactive entertainment, takes places June 13-15 at the Los Angeles Convention Center. / AFP PHOTO / Robyn BECK (Photo credit should read ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)
AFP via Getty Images

Spencer said in February 2024 in a widely-circulated podcast that there were four specific games that would head to PlayStation, saying they represented the philosophy of games that were “over a year old” and “community-driven games” and “first iterations of a franchise.” That was true of those four games, Hi-Fi Rush, Pentiment, Grounded and Sea of Thieves, but Spencer specifically called out games like Indiana Jones where that would not happen. Indiana Jones was released on PlayStation in December 2024.

Now, in this latest story, reports have emerged that Phil Spencer “couldn’t stop playing” a new MMORPG codenamed Blackbird from ZeniMax’s Elder Scrolls Online team and was incredibly impressed with it. That was in March, and three months later, Blackbird was cancelled this past week.

In the same batch of cancellations, we had Everwild, where after a recent visit to Rare, Spencer said: “It’s nice to see the team with Everwild and the progress that they’re making,” Spencer said. “It has been [a while]. And we’ve been able to give those teams time in what they’re doing, which is good, and still have a portfolio like we have.” That was in February, and Everwild was also cancelled last week.

You may notice a pattern here, that Xbox head Phil Spencer is cited in almost all of these. There’s a three-sided debate about whether Spencer was A) not telling the truth on purpose, B) believing what he said at the time, but circumstances changed quickly or C) there is just an immense amount of pressure on Spencer and Xbox from Microsoft. These cuts, including the Xbox ones, are said to be saving cash to funnel into Microsoft’s AI ambitions, where no, I cannot imagine Spencer wants that. There is, of course, still a question of, given how things have gone, whether Spencer is still the best choice to lead this ship. What a couple years it’s been for Xbox. What a couple generations, even.

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