I mean the article answers it, but this is not the first time that devs have complained that they MUST launch software that runs on the X and it's sibling, the S.

Like, it's a requirement that the game runs well on the flagship console and it's potato brother.

It's hardly a mystery why a dev might not want to spend time building a game that looks great on PS5, Series X, and PC and then also have to make a 2nd lobotomized version since Microsoft decided they wanted two consoles this time around.

Considering recent reports of MS not returning communications with developers that they already have working relationships with... They might want to see if their emails are going to real people at MS in the first place.

I went into this article being like yeah this makes no sense why, but reading other comments and the article made me realize yeah it's a no-brainer that developers are skipping on microsoft. They need to get rid of the requirement of if you launch on one you must launch on both, it's basically needlessly increasing the cost of the platform.

I worked retail during the latest generation release and it was very clear that if you wanted to use your system as a system you had to go with the series x. We had customers buying the series s who would come in afterward and be like yeah I returned it, I wanted the ability to have physical Media or I looked up the differences and the x just made sense. The reason anyone ever got the cheaper model was at launch date when the X was not available anywhere.

This combined with the fact that the cheaper model had lower end Hardware which further restricts the games that can go on it and the capabilities basically means that you have to two different branches that have more changes than just changing what platform it's releasing cuz you have to make sure that your defaults are at lower quality for the s.

gamepass is one topic that I was wondering when it would come to light/backfire. It's not an unheard of fact that Microsoft heavily prefers games to go on to their Game Pass Program which in the process of doing so heavily reduces the amount of sales at a game has.

Sales on Xbox (in terms of physical and digital copies) as a whole dropped with the addition of Game Pass becoming mainstream, and while developers are getting paid for having their game on the program, this metric is decided based off a sign up payment, and then based off of how many people actively play the game, so for a developer going on Game Pass you gain a lot of money up front while the game active in being played(which is super helpful for Indie style Developers who really have much money to begin with), there is a steep drop off as the game loses interest which is more severe than if the game had just sold normal game copies.

This drop off in sales while combined with the ever increasing ideology Microsoft Gamers tend to have where if it's not on Game Pass it's not worth playing because they are already paying a monthly subscription for it really makes it so if you weren't planning on enrolling in The Game Pass Program in the first place it's not really all that worth launching on the platform as a whole.

From the beginning I was saying the Series S is a boat anchor that needs to be cut loose. The writing was on the wall when it couldn't even run last gen Xbox One X enhanced games because of the memory bottleneck.

Add to that the bottomless pit of Game Pass and no way to guarantee a steady revenue stream on the platform and the only wonder isn't "why aren't they developing?" but more "why is ANYONE developing?"

Things are going to get really interesting if the PS5 Pro supercedes the Xbox Series X the same way the Xbox One X did all others in the last generation.

What is the latest Xbox even called?