Phil says 2023 will be a better year for Xbox first party

https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/phil-spencer-acknowledges-its-been-too-long-since-xboxs-last-big-first-party-game/

Microsoft’s head of gaming has acknowledged it’s been a quiet year for first-party Xbox games, but claimed that 2023 will be far busier for the platform holder.

By the end of 2022 five games will have been published by Xbox Game Studios this year, but only one of those – Obsidian’s Pentiment – will be an all-new game developed internally.

The others are indie-developed As Dusk Falls, a Forza 5 expansion, an Age of Empires re-release and Obsidian’s Grounded (which has been in Game Preview for two years).

“One thing we’ve definitely heard loud and clear is it’s been too long since we’ve shipped what people would say is a big first-party game,” Phil Spencer said on the Same Brain videocast.

“We can have our excuses with Covid and other things, but in the end I know people invest in our platform and they want to have great games.”

Spencer went on to claim that the 2023 line-up would be far stronger for Xbox, and that the sort of pandemic-caused production delays, which saw its original big holiday release Starfield pushed into 2023, were now in the rearview mirror.

“We’re excited about 2023 and we’ve talked about games that are coming,” he said. “Those games are tracking well [and] we’re out of what Covid did to the production schedule.

“And as an industry we have fewer games this holiday than we’ve had in a while, when you just think about the launches. Call of Duty is coming, God of War is coming – which is great – Nintendo’s had a good year. But in general I would say we’ve been a little light.

“But I look at 2023 and there’s a great line-up of games coming that I’m excited about. Getting our first real Xbox first-party games out of Bethesda, having them ship with Redfall and Starfield, will be a lot of fun.”

I’m glad Phil is willing to admit that 2022 was pretty much a dud for Xbox. Here’s to looking forward to a much better 2023!

Don't doubt it.

MS had excellent output in 2021, so with all their teams working on their next games (which take more than a year to make), it is understandable there wasnt a lot coming out from MS this year.

Still Grounded was good. So they did at least have something, and there were multiplats too.

lol :P

How could it be worse?

I don't think many Xbox owners would think we have had a decent 2022,we haven't.

I think gaming it whole has a bang average 2022 even with Ragnarok coming soon

I don't mind, MS could have rushed a whole lot of games like they used to do. But this gen they've kinda of stopped that bad habit. Not rushing games, was the best things Sony did. It's the one thing I've admired about them the most.

What MS should do though is hold back the release for some of their upcoming games, so they can stagger the releases. Playstation don't develop more games, they've just gotten their studios in a row, to a point where they can stagger releases, so there never appears to be too long without a new game.

MS has the studios now, they really need the staggered releases, so releases leap frog each other. Unfortuneately, getting the studios is one thing, but getting this to happen takes time. For the early years, no more than 2 or maybe 3 AAA games should come out a year, then slowly increase the numbers if you can.

Releasing a chunk of games at the same time is a mistake and MS and Sony both still do this.

Sony did it this year and I thought it was a mistake. Horizon should have waited for the Elden Ring hype to die down a bit, GT7 should have released to a huge summer marketing campaign, leaving GoW to take the holiday season. That would have been a better looking year imo. It kind of just looks like Sony dumped Horizon and GT7 out.

Negative games. Like they took games off of our Xbox?

Greatness awaits?

It’s been a pretty poor year for gaming in general. So I think the covid explanation is credible. Hoping for a better 2023!

Really? I've been enjoying my PS5/Switch immensely!

You'd have to eff up pretty bad to do worse than 2022.

I would make sweet love to my PS5 if it had a port big enough.....

That makes zero sense.. there have been releases that XSX has utilized better than the X1X like Forza Horizon 5.. or cant be run at all on X1X (Flight Simulator for example).

Using your logic, Sony could have delayed the PS5 because there are not many PS5 games that wont play on a PS4

It does make zero sense. Unless it's a cow saying it......

Considering the past decade of absolute shit from Xbox Studios, the only way is up....

Lol its xbox they gonna mess it up somehow.

I mean, kinda has to right? 😆

It’s got a usb c buddy, you’re good to go

LOL. When was the year that we heard the "best year in Xbox history"? Was it 2019? Since then, they're always saying something similar, but they haven't delivered once. All that will happen in 2023 is more delays and games coming out in a mega shit state because their studios have the worst management in the gaming industry.

2021 Developer of the Year award went to... Xbox Games Studios. ;o

As I Herd here before, let that sink in!! lol :P

Both consoles launched with low stock and low on games. And with the big AAA 3rd party games all still appearing on PS4/XBO… A delay made all the sense in the world. And my biggest issue with the consoles launching when they did, was the tech. If they waited 1 year, we get much better GPU and CPU performance. Waiting until ‘22 would have been even better. And maybe with a delay, Xbox rethinks the Series S memory bandwidth and capacity. Everyone would have benefited from a console delay. ESPECIALLY gamers.

This shouldn’t be a Xbox vs PS thing. The consoles launched at a real awkward time in tech. And now we’re gonna be tied to these things for the better part of a decade…

Oof...

Yep, I’m sure that it will be as well.

One can only hope.

Releasing just ONE AAA game next year will make it better than 2022 for Xbox... that's sad

@SolidGame_basic: If they just release 2 games, it will be 1000x better than 2022...

I can't believe an exec didn't say "Listen, we're going to be even shittier next year". Crazy.

Hmm.... 2 x 0 = 0

I kid...

I am looking forward to Pentiment. Not sure if I will check out Grounded yet. Also need to play Deathloop. All Xbox Game Studios games that came/come out this year.

@SolidGame_basic: Uncle Phil is just being modest. 2022 was a fantastic year for Gamepass and Xbox, with tons of great releases. Could it be better? Yes of course, and thats why 2023 is going to be even more amazing.

Its really sad what's happening with the Xbox brand tbh. All upcoming games being made for the GP in mind is such bad news. Your game's quality will be lowered by at least 50%, and that sucks.

deathloop is also on ps plus. if you prefer the controller features.

No, I prefer the layout of the Xbox controller, and I disabled the dualsense features on my DS5.

Not exactly a difficult mark to beat. That stated, don't they say this every year?

"Next year will be the best year ever for Xbox..."

Temper your expectations.

even for single player games? I think its great for single player games. it give it that extra layer of emersion.

spiderman 2 for ps5 alone is going to hard to beat.

its kind of equal to 2020 as well. flight sim and and don't know lol. can't think of anything else.

The Xbox brand has only survived because of its deluded fans that have been brainwashed into waiting until “next year”. Phil Spencer has no idea how to create or manage compelling games, and the Xbox fannies couldn’t care less.

Yup. I was playing Miles Morales and all the swinging was make those thing spin like crazy non-stop. In fact it was so much they started to squeak while spinning from so much use. And it was getting annoying on my hands. I finally paused the game, went into settings and disabled it. Never went back.

LMAO

@gifford38: Gears Tactics, which I quite liked.

And Gears Hivebusters DLC which was actually pretty good as well.

Can't think of anything else.

Nah, 2020 was good. Wasteland 3, Tell Me Why, Gears Tactics, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Flight Simulator that I remember.

@kvallyx: I forgot about Wasteland 3. I really liked that game, especially the embedded humor like Reagan and the Nancy(s).

That's why GP is "profitable" so far. They barely released any of their new big titles on it yet

Tell Me Why, Gears Tactics, Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Flight Simulator

It's ok but it as xbox launch year and Had nothing ready for the first time ever in the history of any system launch.

Not like MS will combine game expenses into the overall equation of gamepass profitability anyway

No doubt, everyone is entitled to their opinions. 👍

It has A LOT of their big titles on it. In fact, it has all of their big titles on it with the exception of Forza games that have expired licenses.

No shit, I hope. It couldn’t be worse.