Xbox CEO, Asha Sharma Discusses Console Exclusives Coming Back In First MAJOR Interview!

Added: 2026-04-29

[00:00:00]Heat.

[00:00:16]Heat.

[00:00:35]What I want to do gentlemen and chat is I want to focus on this story that I have in front of me from windows central.com and it's regarding exclusivity and it's what Asha Sharma had to say. Now, I believe and have always believed that exclusive games bring people to your hardware. And one of the things that I keep seeing, and I don't understand this logic, gentlemen, and we're going to we're going to again, this is going to be a bit of a longer topic because this is the biggest one of of the day.

[00:01:15]I consistently see and hear people of all gaming ages, shapes, and sizes tell me no one is going to buy Xbox for one game.

[00:01:30]And I actually think that is wrong because you're saying that people will go out and buy a PlayStation for Wolverine or people will go out and buy a a Switch 2 for a new Pokemon, but someone who grew up in the Xbox 360 days that don't that does not have an Xbox won't go out and buy a new Xbox for the for Gears of War Eday. Now, maybe because we don't know exactly what it looks like, what we have heard is that it's going to change lives, melt eyeballs, all that, all that rigomearroll.

[00:02:17]But when you consider where Xbox sits right now, is it fair to say that even though the Series S is looked upon as being not a big console and not an important part of next gen, is it the cheapest entry point into next generation? The answer is, you're goddamn right it is.

[00:02:42]and Xbox finds themselves in a position where if they maybe reduce the price and actually do some real marketing like not the the way that they were marketing for years which sorry to say was freaking awful. I don't know who was running the show but it was not working and their marketing was terrible.

[00:03:09]Today I put out and this was a mockup. I used AI to generate this stuff. I didn't I'm not an artist. I couldn't do this myself. I made an advertising campaign for Gears of War eay with two consoles and I actually tagged Asha. Now, we'll see whether or not it goes anywhere. It probably won't, but I think the community really responded pretty well and they liked it. That's how you market. That's that's Xbox 360 energy, ladies and gentlemen. Well, look, I have a report here from Brendan Lowry of Windows Central.com and it's actually quoting Asha in this interview regarding exclusivity.

[00:03:49]And it goes on to say in its header, quote, I want to make the right decision. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma says Microsoft will make some calls on exclusive games but won't rush to make the quote fastest decision. And in its subtext, Microsoft and Xbox are re-evaluating its position on exclusive games, but doing doing so will take some time. Now, of course, like that, of course, it's going to take some time.

[00:04:18]This can't be a rash decision.

[00:04:22]But I will say this, and I this is something that I have not heard a lot of people talk about. Jamie Moran, could anyone in the chat, and I'm going to go right back to the chat, and I get back to this article, could give me a number or an amount that you believe is worth damaging your brand to a point where it's looked upon in fourth place.

[00:04:48]Does anybody have that number? Is that number 300 million? Because what I keep seeing online, Jamie, is that Oh, boom.

[00:04:56]Well, there's absolutely no way Forza Horizon 6 stays exclusive, they made $300 million on PlayStation. So, here's my question to you, ladies and gentlemen. Is the $300 million that they made to put that game on PlayStation worth Xbox's brand damage that is currently that that it's suffering?

[00:05:17]Because the the damage is the brand is damaged. That's it. There's no way to There's no way to sugarcoat it. It's damaged, ladies and gentlemen. Why?

[00:05:27]because they made decisions on chasing customers that they didn't have and they forgot about the customers they did have. Now, here's another one. Is it too late to change or shift gears into Halo, your flagship IP going to PlayStation?

[00:05:49]Because I'm going to be honest with you, they said it was going to go there, but can't they have a change of heart? Can they change can change change their mind? Like if you're going to go back to exclusivity, I'm sorry. Halo has no place on PlayStation. I said this before, I'll say it again. I don't personally think Xbox needs PlayStation. You know why?

[00:06:14]Because the biggest market is not PlayStation. It is not. People will tell you it is, but it's not. It's not Nintendo. Nope, it's not them either.

[00:06:23]It's PC and they're already there. PC is the largest audience. And when you have a game that melts eyeballs that does that that delivers, you know, the feels like a Gears of War Eday is going is going to do or Forsa Horizon 6 is going to do because look, we know how crazy the Steam numbers were for Forsa Horizon 5. Do you don't think six is going to be that big? Of course it is. So the question is, do they really need PlayStation? And is brand damage, as big as it's been for Xbox, worth the price of admission? Jamie, I would say no, because quite frankly, only one game really jumps off the page for exclusive exclusive games going to PlayStation that really sold well. See at Thieves sold like what, a million and a half.

[00:07:19]That's their next biggest. Like all of the games that they put over there. A perfect example of just egregious.

[00:07:28]16,000 copies of South of Midnight sold on PlayStation. Is that considered an epic fail? Yeah, I think it would. I' I'd say it would be. That game is brilliant. Just won a Peabody, by the way. Um, but it only sold 16,000.

[00:07:46]Who plays on PlayStation? Is it only hardcore? It's not. 85 plus percent of those players are normies, ladies and gentlemen. They're playing Call of Duty, Madden, NBA 2K, you know, the new GTA, GTA 5. They could give a flying [ __ ] about Xbox games.

[00:08:06]Hell, they don't even buy PlayStation first party games. You think they're buying Soros or MLB The Show? No. Will they buy Wolverine? Probably. But is that everyone? No, it's not. Jamie, I want to read a little bit more from this article and bring you in and get your thoughts on exclusivity and its importance. So, Ben, uh, so let's see.

[00:08:27]Brendan goes on to say this. Recent years has seen Microsoft and Xbox embrace releasing its firstparty games on ra rival platforms like PlayStation 5, embracing a fully multi-platform strategy and effectively killing the idea of having titles exclusive to the Xbox ecosystem. This has brought success in Forsa Horizon 5, which performed exceptionally well on PlayStation and Sea of Thieves did too. But not every Xbox game has been a hit on other systems. One consequence of this new decision is that it may feel the lack of console exclusives devalues the Xbox brand and makes it difficult to justify purchasing an Xbox Series X or S over a PlayStation 5. As with the exception to Hell Divers 2, all PlayStation Studio titles are exclusive to that platform.

[00:09:26]Now, just one more paragraph. When Phil Spencer retired and the news Xbox CEO Asha Chararma stepped up to fill his shoes in February, the strong desire from the gaming community for a return to exclusives was one of the first things she was met with. at the time.

[00:09:47]She said, "The plan is the plan until it's not the plan," suggesting a potential shift of Microsoft's position on Xbox exclusives. I'm going to end it right there. I will of course add this to the show notes, but I want to talk about exclusivity because I mean, listen, I don't have a degree in business. I'm just a retired guy that loves talking about video games and podcasts. five days a week. But I understand I can take the room, the temperature of the room. And the temperature of the room is people keep saying, "Why do I need an Xbox?" Well, if you can only play Gears of War, Eday, Halo Campaign Evolved, and Forza Horizon 6 on a Xbox Series XS or PC, you're going to get one of those. You know where you can't play it and where I would not allow it to be played moving forward with this new this new management is on PlayStation. You know why? Because PlayStation has said f you on putting their games on your platform.

[00:10:56]They're not doing that. So if they're not doing it and your games outside of one or two are not selling well, why do you keep banging your head against the wall and putting games there? Like I said, I will ask the question again. Was the 300 million that was reported in gains from Forza Horizon 5 worth the irreparable damage that has come the way of the Xbox platform? My answer is absolutely it has not. And if you want people to buy into your Series X and S, that is your current console, you got to stop putting your [ __ ] on other places that's not PC or Xbox. That's my botness coming out. And I don't even care. You can call it console war or not, but if we're going to play this game, let's play it, right? Let's put the games where they belong on Xbox and PC being a part of it because Xbox is PC, PC is Xbox. That's acceptable.

[00:12:00]Putting these games anywhere else, especially when you're trying to sell that we're back as a brand is not the way. I want to get your thoughts on this, Jamie.

[00:12:10]>> I mean, this is a it's a weird issue because um uh I I see lying about this all the time. You know, people I I see people all the time, they they say Microsoft should continue to put their games everywhere, and you look at the profile and they just doing it from a very dis disingenuous place where they just want the games on their favorite platform so they don't have to buy an Xbox. That's what it is, >> right?

[00:12:35]>> Right. Um the truth is is if every game was on every platform, it would always sell more. Right. That that goes for every game, right? If Spider-Man was on Xbox and Switch as well as PlayStation, of course it would sell sell more. Same with, you know, Mario, Halo, every other game on Earth, right? That's just how it works. Um, but the amount of money that a console makes isn't really just based off that one game. And I I I seen this in chat a million times today that like Microsoft will lose money if they don't put their games on other platforms. But that's not how it works. Let's say you have someone, they're on last generation. They're looking at Gears of War EDA, which has only been announced for Xbox, by the way, so far. So, let's say that person buys an Xbox Series X.

[00:13:23]They buy Gears of War, eay, and they are in the ecosystem, right? They're going to buy other games. They're going to buy microtransactions. They're going to buy DLC subscriptions. So, it's got nothing to do with the onetoone sale. It's got to do with the money total from that player, right? Net revenue from that player, right? So, like saying that they're losing money by not putting their game on more platforms is like stay saying if I don't breathe, I'll die.

[00:13:51]Like that's always going to be the case, right? So, like my point is is that is X is Xbox putting their games on other platforms doing damage to the brand? I don't care if you a fan of PlayStation, Nintendo, retro only, whatever. Right? You can't say anything other than yes. Right? It's crystal clear that there's been damage to the brand. Right? And like, how do you fix that? People always say, "I want Xbox to do better." But they never specify what that is, right? They never specify what that is because they're getting the games they want on their favorite platform.

[00:14:30]Microsoft. The fact that they mentioned exclusives in that post means that they actually really considering it. Um, the damage to the brand is not worth that multiplatform money in my opinion. By the way, I don't think they should make every game exclusive. I've said this on my podcast. I said it on Twitter. I'll say it again. Right. I think your 10pole games, you know, your Halo, your 40, your Gears, right? Uh, your Fable, right? those games exclusives. You know, brand new big games in the single player space such as that Starcraft shooter that's going to be coming out that should be on Xbox and PC. Uh but things like Minecraft Dungeons, Minecraft Call of Duty, uh you know, Modern Warfare 4 that comes out this year, right? Those obviously on PlayStation. Hell, I've always said that if there's ever a new Killer Instinct, that should be everywhere.

[00:15:17]>> That makes sense because of just because the fighting community is very niche anyway.

[00:15:22]>> Yeah. like like the fighting game uh genre dies by its audience, right? Lives and dies by its audience. So like to me that would make sense. But like brand new let's say brand new single player IP by Bethesda, right? Xbox and PC, I think that makes sense. But like if you look at it like Xbox as a platform, you always see you always see like why should you buy an Xbox if you could buy their games elsewhere? But these same people don't want their games to leave their favorite platform.

[00:15:52]>> Yes.

[00:15:53]>> So it's that's where the disingenuous thing comes from. Um so like what does Microsoft do? Well, just because their logos are in some trailers right now, it means deadly squash, right? Do you know when Stella Blade was announced, Xbox was in the logo? Sorry, the Xbox logo was in the trailer, right?

[00:16:11]>> Uh Project Eve, I was looking forward to that game and then oh poof, the the the logo was missing, right? you know, uh, and like the Forza thing, right? Fortza has been announced for PlayStation. That also means Diddly Squad. And you know, the amount of replies I get saying, "Oh, I can't wait to buy Fort Horizon 6 on PlayStation this year." If you think about it financially, it doesn't mean it doesn't make any sense for Microsoft to even put Forta on PlayStation this year in general because Fort's life cycle or for Horizon's life cycle is around 2 to four years. Yeah, that's 2 to four years of people buying into the the microtransactions, getting car packs, getting expansions, and you typically wouldn't put a Forza game on a platform to have the life cycle be less than one year, right? So, to me, I don't think them saying PlayStation later has anything to do with the port not being ready. I think it's to do with the fact that that's how these games make money, right? I see you have some PlayStation fanboys in chat that don't like what I'm hearing, but as fans of Forza, >> that's how it works, right? Before the game comes out, it has a crap ton of licensed music. It has a crap ton of licensed cars. It reaches its end of life after having tons of car packs, two mainline expansions, and also a bunch of free updates. And then they announced the brand new game. And what did they do the following summer? They delist the last game. It's been happening with for Horizon since the first game. That's the life cycle of these games. So you typically wouldn't have a for Horizon game a year later from another one. So that doesn't make sense. So like uh that's one game in Halo. Like I think Halo Halo Campaign Evolved is a weird game because um it is just a it's a game we've had before. It's just, you know, it's Combat Evolved anniversary just it's prettier, right? I don't care what anyone says.

[00:18:06]It's a prettier version of that game that we've already had twice and it's got sprint and a couple of new chapters that the only people that will notice those new chapters uh the people like us that have played those games a million times.

[00:18:18]>> Yeah.

[00:18:18]>> And that game doesn't have multiplayer or microtransactions.

[00:18:22]So like that game technically doesn't make sense. And like look at Gears of War Ultimate Edition, right? Which came out in 2015, right? That game is a onetoone remake, but it came to PlayStation last year and it barely moved the needle.

[00:18:39]>> Didn't even sell a million copies, brother.

[00:18:40]>> Yeah. So, like, so does that tell us that there aren't Gears? There aren't people on PlayStation that want more Gears games because Gears of War One's an amazing game.

[00:18:49]>> It is.

[00:18:49]>> They did incredible job with Ultimate Edition. They made it even better with Reloaded and nobody bought it, right? Uh yet when that came out in 2015 originally on Xbox, it charted number one in the UK and people bought that game. In fact, it was hard to get a copy in the UK, right? Because it was selling out so fast. So that's Gears and like look at Fable. Fable, we haven't had a Fable game since Fable 3. I'm not including the Connect one. It's been so long since we've had a mainline Fable game. And this is a 10pole firsterson, sorry, first party RPG. and you're going to put it on an alternate platform, it doesn't benefit Xbox in any way, right?

[00:19:29]It's a single player game. There's no microtransactions. There's no season passes or battle pass. You don't have people, you know, uh, paying into a live service, right? So, you have these people buy the $70 game up front and that's it, right? Why is it okay for us to go out and say, "Hey, you go out and buy a Switch for a new Zelda game. you go out and buy like I've been told to buy a PlayStation for years for Final Fantasy games which are third party games.

[00:19:58]>> Yes, I remember you talking about that.

[00:19:59]Yep.

[00:20:00]>> Yeah. These same people, these same people will go out and say that Xbox should put their games on other platforms because come by we need to have everyone walking down the road holding hands being happy together where we don't live in this actual world that exists right these are businesses and if people want Xbox to be relevant if people want Xbox to actually compete what do they do to compete and I always hear this number one thing Game Pass is the exclusive I'm sorry but that's not I I've never once I've never once heard someone go, "Yeah, yeah, uh, Xbox has this exclusive called Game Pass."

[00:20:34]Nobody's ever said that in the history of time, right?

[00:20:37]>> Xbox hasn't said that. Are you kidding me? Like I said, it's if they would have gotten 100 million subscribers because of that ideology. And I I've even used it like, you know, technically Xbox is the, you know, is the exclusive. Yeah, on paper that sounds great, but they they don't have 100 million subscribers and they don't sell their own wares really well to be honest with you. So, >> yeah, I I've seen a lot of infighting in the community about the whole exclusive situation. Like, if you apparently want Xbox to do exclusives, right, you get told you're a fanboy, it's anti-consumer, and you just want to boast about these games. Like, no, I'm a fan of the Xbox brand, right? I prefer the hardware. I like the games they make. And guess what? If I want Xbox to compete, how do they compete? They have exclusives games. Like Microsoft have never been able to do this thing which I call follow through where they've had these plans in motion. They buy all these studios in 2018. Those studios get hard at work and then we we get put into lockdown. All these people working from home where all these games got delayed.

[00:21:46]And now we finally at a place where games are coming out regularly and Microsoft decide to not see how the these games push their their pieces of hardware. And I've seen in chat a million times today. I've seen it this past week but I've never mentioned but I can address it today and I can't wait because I've been itching to talk about this. People keep saying exclusives didn't work for Xbox this generation.

[00:22:07]And I have to say that's Poppycock, right? Because if you look back at this generation, every single game they came out with has either been a smaller title, which wouldn't move the needle anyway, or it's been a bigger title that's been marred in fake controversy.

[00:22:22]Number one, Halo Infinite. Halo Infinite didn't launch with the Xbox Series XOS.

[00:22:27]It came out a year later. Men controversy because of the whole Craig thing, right, which I thought was dumb to begin with. Fast forward to Redfall.

[00:22:36]We all saw how that turned out. People were hating on that game before it came out and then hated on it afterwards. And let's be honest, was anyone going out there to buy a console to play Redfall?

[00:22:48]No. And then what else came out that year? Hellblade. Was anyone really going to talk about a 12-hour cinematic third person game like that as a console seller? I don't particularly think so. But I think it's one of those games that you you have in your library, your your portfolio of this game that's basically I want to call it the Oscar winner game.

[00:23:08]>> Yeah.

[00:23:09]>> Awardw winning game. And it it did just that, right? And look at Starfield.

[00:23:13]Starfield was Bethesda's brand new third pillar RPG in 2024. And what happened when that came out? It was marginous fake controversy.

[00:23:24]Uh oh, sorry. It was Starfield 2023.

[00:23:28]I think it was 2023.

[00:23:29]>> Yeah, 2023 Starfield came out. Correct.

[00:23:31]>> Yeah. 2023. Uh, people were hating on the game before it came out. And then when it came out, people were hating on that game afterwards. And like look at any post I've ever made, right? Hey, I found this cool planet in Starfield and I have like a thousand replies of people hating on me, hating on the game, right?

[00:23:47]>> And like you have IGN, but we're calling this game Starfield. Controversial based on nothing, right? So that game was not going to move the needle. So like Microsoft really their first party lineup didn't really get really really good when they from when they start releasing uh I'd say Indiana Jones right that's when they like last year and yeah last year was basically when they came out and start coming out like hammering with games every month right there's a new game coming out every month every month and a half right I think they last year they came out with 11 games total brand new games sequels you know, ports and whatnot, and that was a great year. And this year is looking great. So, like, Microsoft never gave it a chance, right? And to the come by our folk of people that want every game to be on everything, why do these same people never campaign for Nintendo or PlayStation to put their games elsewhere, right? I would love it. I would love it if we lived in this world where you could turn on your Xbox and play Zelda. Turn on your PlayStation, play Super Smash Brothers, play Uncharted on a Switch, too. That would be an amazing world. It would. It would be so cool. You know, play a Mario game on a PC. But we don't live in that world, right? These companies need to push hardware. How did they push hardware?

[00:25:06]These people can't give me a legitimate answer, you know? Um, like if if PlayStation PlayStation is willing to buy, sorry, PlayStation is willing to pay to keep games off Xbox, right?

[00:25:18]That's what Microsoft's competing against. So, like if you have Sony that are willing to go out there and even like look uh Blackmth Wukong was announced for Xbox and then oh it was randomly pulled away from the uh the trailers, right?

[00:25:35]Isn't that a bit weird? Oh, and then it came to Xbox exactly one year later and they were blaming the Series S, right?

[00:25:41]Bit convenient. Like there's all these weird things that come out about that stuff, but like if they have competition that is willing to pay to keep games off Xbox, why can't these people tell me how Xbox should compete in that world? They can't tell me.

[00:25:56]Like, it's ridiculous. Xbox needs to compete. And if Xbox does compete, then we all win. People on PlayStation win as well because these people will have PlayStation that will react to a different company that is trying harder, right? Because look back to the seventh generation, the Xbox 360 came out of the gate swinging. They had a bunch of games line up and they were the first nextG hardware to come out. You look at the Wii U, sorry, the Wii that came out, right? The Wii had a very uh pulverizing uh launch title with Wii Sports.

[00:26:32]Everyone and their grandmother bought one. Then you look at the PlayStation 3, right? The PlayStation 3 people said launched with no games. It was an overpriced Blu-ray player. But do you know what they did that generation?

[00:26:45]When uh when Xbox and Nintendo were out selling them 10 to one, PlayStation got hard at work. They start releasing a wide variet wide lineup of variety when it comes to their first party titles.

[00:26:57]They came out with first person shooters, third person shooters, fighting games, RPGs, GRPGs, racing games, you know, arcade racing games.

[00:27:04]They came out with every single game you could think of. you know, Warhawk, Starhawk, right? That would satisfy people. That would entice people to the brand. So, PlayStation got more popular.

[00:27:15]Then Xbox, well, Xbox launched. What?

[00:27:18]They had a problem, right? They had a 50% failure rate with their hardware.

[00:27:22]So, they sorted out the problem, right?

[00:27:25]And they start coming out with more first party games. They became the de facto console to buy that generation for things like, you know, Call of Duty, Grand Theft Auto, all that stuff. As well as having first party games.

[00:27:36]Nintendo had a port problem that that generation, right? They were they had the weakest console and developers found it very difficult to get games running on that hardware because it was essentially two Gamecubes duct tape duct taped together. Um, so like the Wii became so popular that developers kind of forced themselves to try and get these games to work on that hardware. So that's why you have Black Ops that's basically a completely different game on that on that console. Uh so by the end of the generation, all three companies were competing constantly, right? Uh the Xbox 360 won the US NPD 37 months in a row, right? But even though they won, you had you still have PlayStation competing with first party. You still had Nintendo competing with first party, and you had Xbox competing with first party, right? Don't people want that again? Don't people want all these three companies competing at their finest all the time? cuz I guar I guarantee you right that if all three companies had around 100 million consoles out right now we wouldn't be talking about exclusives. Hell we probably wouldn't be talking about hardware at the minute because I think Microsoft Sony would push out the next generation for another four years but like the conversation wouldn't be about exclusivity exclusivity anymore. We'd be talking about the games we're playing, right?

[00:28:54]But we don't live in that world anymore unfortunately. And Microsoft, they've clearly seen this. They know that they need to change things and if I can see this surely a trillion dollar organization.

[00:29:07]But hey, that's just my take.

[00:29:08]>> No, no, it's and and it's a fantastic take. You know, Umbra, I want to bring you in, but before I do, I want to read the last excerpt from this article. So, it goes on to say, "Now, two months later, in an interview with GameFile, Chararma has explained the her approach and how Xbox is taking what they're going to do and deciding whether or not exclusives will return, noting that she's going to be very cautious because these choices are long swinging decisions that have decadelong impacts."

[00:29:41]And this is what she had to say. More specifically, we'll take a datadriven approach and a strategic driven approach and then we'll look at our principles and we'll make some calls. So, we we'll share more when we're ready, she explained. But she closed out the uh the question with I quote, I want to make the right decision, not the fastest decision. So, look, Umbra, before I hand you the microphone and get your thoughts on this whole exclusivity thing, I'm a numbers guy. Everybody knows that. I have some numbers in front of me that may shock you. And well, maybe it won't.

[00:30:21]So, you know, we talk about success. We know that um Grounded sold almost 500,000 copies on PlayStation, which is not bad, right? It's not a million, but it's it's it's like 496 496,000. pretty damn good considering Returnal.

[00:30:39]>> Yeah. Well, yeah, and that's fair.

[00:30:41]That's a That's a fair That's a fair assessment. Um the the next best one in the list was um Sea of Thieves. I think it sold 1.2 million copies. That's that's pretty good. The game was pretty old when it got there, right? Um I'm sure Microsoft wanted to sell 5 million copies, but you know, again, it's a it's a multiplayer online game. Not for me per se, but for a lot of people that want to play as Pirates, it sold 1.2.

[00:31:09]The next one, of course, is the leader of the pack. 5.5 million on uh for Forsa Horizon 5. Big big seller on PlayStation, no doubt. But here are some games that weren't big sellers. And you got to ask yourself, chat, is the the lemon worth the squeeze?

[00:31:31]Meaning, is it worth porting these games? And here are three. I'm only three, right? The first one was Starfield, which I thought for sure was going to be a million seller. The first day one, million people are going to play this game. It's been an exclusive for three years. Holy cow. They did this big update. You know, obviously Todd Howard said it's not 2.0, but it did have the new expansion. It did have all the quality of life stuff that they talked about. It's going to sell a million copies. Well, guess how many copies it sold, ladies and gentlemen. 140,000.

[00:32:07]That's it.

[00:32:09]140,000 copies. How about the next one?

[00:32:13]Indiana Jones. Everybody knows Harrison Ford is Indiana Jones, right? Well, it sold 117,000 copies. Not good, Umbra. And one more.

[00:32:24]One last one. Avowed. it sold so poorly that there are no numbers attached to this. I want to get your thoughts on the whole, you know, exclusivity thing and if Xbox should go back to it.

[00:32:37]>> Yeah. I mean, it's, you know, the I hate to say the cliche line of casebycase basis, but it seems to be it seems to be that might be the thing. I mean, we see it with Forza, like you mentioned, we see it with Grounded. Grounded doing selling that much is actually really good. It's a double A game. clearly didn't cost much to make. It's not a it's a a small team on it. 500,000 copies over there. That's excellent for it. Um so it it's going to be about what titles make the most sense, right? And um I think there needs to be a weighing of of like you said, is it worth the squeeze, right? Like is is this putting this over there worth it? We some people mentioned in the chat, South of Midnight being ignored, right? not getting any of the love which it deserves. So titles like I and I said this before I think on a previous show where I said I think smaller titles the there's no reason to even port them really most of the time right I am surprised obviously about Grounded doing so well but well I'm not surprised because it's a good game but I'm surprised that they took hold to it that much to sell that much but you know I feel like keep some of these keep the smaller titles at home and if you have multiplayer titles like a Sea of Thieves like a fortza, you know, maybe the multiplayer portions of ex of Halo and and Gears maybe that and I'm saying maybe because maybe they don't get anything that, right? You still have to have a killer app and Game Pass is not just that. I I you know I feel like the team uh at Xbox kind of thought that Xbox that Game Pass was this killer app for a long time and I hope they're getting out of that mindset because not everybody is trying to get in Game Pass.

[00:34:31]Right.

[00:34:31]>> Right.

[00:34:32]>> Some people just want to buy a game and keep it moving. Um, I think Game Pass is an excellent seller on a on a platform, but it's not like, oh man, you got to get over here because you got Game Pass versus all these quality titles.

[00:34:48]Keep making these quality titles and keep them at home where no one else can get them but there and people are going to be forced to come back home. It's kind of that simple really. I feel like they should do that not only for Halo. I think they need to even if they bring out the Halo campaign evolved, I wouldn't bring wouldn't dare bring out the next actual sequel of Halo, you know, the actual sequel from Infinite to the next game to that platform. It would stay at home like here's a little taste.

[00:35:22]Now, if you want the whole shebang, you got to come on over to Xbox, right? And they got other cards that can play, right? Clearly, um, Elder Scrolls is a major. Fallout is a major. They can do that with those. Do they have the coahones? Boom.

[00:35:40]Well, Asha's in charge, but, you know, still, you know, she may have the she may have the the testicular fortitude, so to speak. Um, respectfully, of course. Um, we'll see. I mean, if if she could say, "Hey, look, this makes a lot of sense here." And if Satia and and Amy Hood can give her that leeway, I think it could pay off. And the thing is though, it's like they have to change their perception. I want to make sure to just say this last part because even what I'm saying what I'm saying, I believe that and I know that you believe that and maybe others, right? I'm sure Jamie believes that if hey you keep these games exclusives people people will come to the thing is is that Microsoft or at least Xbox you know in the past have have been wishy-washy so they switch back and forth on things so often that a lot of people may not believe them if they go a direction initially. It's got to be something they stick with. You know what I mean? So, it can't be something like, "Oh, yeah, we're going to do this and then, well, it didn't work out the way we thought." Four months later or six months later, we decided to change this again, right?

[00:36:50]That can't be the case. It's got to be It's got to be a long-term thing >> to bring people back to the platform.

[00:36:57]And I just want to know if they're really dedicated to the long term.

[00:37:01]That's it. If they're really dedicated to the long term, they're going to have to stick with it and stand by it. And that may mean, you know, a lack of sales. That may mean, you know, some of these prestige games um not hitting the quotas that they would want for what they paid for their budget. I don't know. But that's what it feels like to me. It's something they're going to have to stick with and actually implement unwaveringly, you know, and and I think if you continue doing that and you keep putting out great products, you know, the old saying of the if you build it, they will come. I think that applies, right? Keep making these great games. I was I would hope that because one of her mission statements was to make, you know, the the great games, make the best of games. And I would hope that that translates into, you know, higher meta rated games. And what I mean, I know meta is not the only thing, but it what I mean by that is put more effort into making your franchises, you know, be revered as anything else on any other platform, right?

[00:38:10]>> Yes, I agree.

[00:38:12]>> And that's it. Just keep putting that out there. No matter what the critics are going to eventually say, I think if you keep putting out quality, it's only so long that they can pretend that you don't have good a good game here. Just keep doing it. They're on the right track, obviously, because the games they've been releasing have been hitting the the high 70s or 80s, right? In the 80s. So, I'm I'm happy with what they're doing. I just got to keep with that. And they have to stick with what I'm saying long term. If they really want to bring people over, they really have to do that. Just keep things exclusive. Some of these at least major titles.