As the Xbox One nears its full 10-year anniversary, Xbox Game Studios Chief Matt Booty, has confirmed that Microsoft’s first-party studios have concluded their development support for the 8th-gen family of systems when it comes to new games.
This means that, moving forward, all first-party console releases will be exclusive to the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S.
Saying goodbye to Xbox’s most tumultuous generation
“We’ve moved on to Gen 9 [the Xbox Series X|S]”, Booty confirmed in a recent interview with Axios.
In this conversation, the topic of how during the June 2023 Xbox Games Showcase, there were no titles from any of Microsoft’s 23 first-party studios that were announced as cross-gen releases. For example, graphically-impressive games such as the upcoming Forza Motorsport and Microsoft Flight Simulator 2024 are coming to PC and Xbox Series X|S only.
Support for existing games will continue; titles such as Forza Horizon 5 from Playground Games and Mojang’s Minecraft come to mind. But, as for brand-new games, it’s over for the Xbox One generation. This move is set to improve the workflow for every studio, allowing them to have more new games ready sooner.
The Xbox Series X|S released back in 2020, just days from the release of Sony’s PlayStation 5. The arrival of new hardware from both company’s is very similar to how the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 systems also launched within days of each other back in late 2013.
As we all know now, Sony went onto have an incredibly successful run with the PS4, with the system surpassing the coveted 100 million milestone for global sales.
Meanwhile, the official number of Xbox One consoles sold is unknown, as Microsoft stopped releasing those statistics early in the system’s life, after it became clear that its business was not doing so well. Only Nintendo’s infamously poor-selling Wii U fell harder than the Xbox One during the 8th-generation. Despite its initial poor sales, however, Microsoft kept dumping money into the Xbox One ecosystem, leading to the release of the Xbox One S—a smaller, sleeker, more efficient model.
On the flipside, however, Microsoft then went onto make the Xbox One X—a more powerful system that was capable of 4K gaming, to a degree. It was technically the most powerful of the 8th-gen, outdoing the PS4’s initial claim to that title and still outpacing Sony’s own mid-gen refresh, the PS4 Pro.
Now, the Xbox Series X touts the ‘most powerful’ title once more, with the Xbox Series S being more focused on budget-conscious consumers at the expense of less horsepower.
The work continues
Booty also touched on this fact during the same interview, stating that while it is a bit of a challenge for the teams to optimize their games for both system configurations, they’re progressively getting better with handling the tech.
There were murmurs not too long ago that Microsoft was being asked by some studios to axe its mandate for devs to support both consoles, allowing those who wanted to focus on the Xbox Series X to do so.
As for those still sticking with their Xbox One for a little bit longer, all hope is not lost. Many third-party studios are still releasing new cross-gen games.
For example, Ubisoft’s upcoming The Crew Motorfest will be on all consoles (minus Switch) this September. As for upcoming first-party games with no native Xbox One versions, they will still be playable as long as they’re in the Xbox Cloud Gaming library.
