How Microsoft Is Killing Xbox and If Xbox Game Pass Comes to Switch It Will Be the Final Nail in the Coffin

If rumors are true then pretty soon we’ll have to start planning the funeral of the Microsoft Games division and the Xbox consoles. For a while now MS has been making some………. let’s just call them questionable decisions in terms of supporting Xbox and their exclusive games. For example, Xbox Play Anywhere has been an exciting combination of both sides of their business, using Xbox games to push their PC audience to buy through the Microsoft store but where they started tilting the scales too far was making Xbox exclusive games available on PC.

When MS made Xbox exclusive games Play Anywhere they killed any interest the average gamer had in getting an Xbox, especially the One X. While it is true that the Xbox One X is graphically one of if not the best-looking home console on the market the more cost-effective option is just to get a decently priced PC and get the best of both worlds. All of the exclusives from Xbox on a PC, what more could you ask for? Well apparently someone asked a genie (Probably Will Smith’s genie, he seems weird enough to do it) to take it anywhere because now supposedly the Xbox Game Pass service is coming to the Nintendo Switch and this should be scaring Xbox fans most of all. Imagine it, all of those years of wish you could play Halo on the go becoming a reality but nobody could have predicted that it might be on a Nintendo console, or that instead of bringing joy to the Xboys (yea I just called them that, I feel old) it should make them shake in their boots.

Now, these rumors may just be just that but there is an air of truth to them, but that’s what makes rumors so dangerous. First the supporting evidence, Microsoft and Nintendo have been veeeeeeery buddy-buddy in recent years, most notably allowing crossplay for multiple games with PlayStation being the only opponent to the relationship, which doesn’t make a lot of sense but that’s for a different article, and even openly saying that they are more than willing to do more crossplay games. Definitely suspicious. Microsoft putting more effort in other consoles also supports the idea that something like this might happen, as I said before shifting focus to PC games is seeming more and more like their priority right now. Plus if this deal were to go through it would ultimately only spell profit for Nintendo, more former Xbox gamers would flock to the Switch selling hardware like crazy all for just hosting Game Pass on their console, they may even charge a hosting fee or something along those lines. No matter what they do it speaks nothing but money, big money.

The only big thing left to figure out is why Microsoft would do this? What reason would they have to bring all of this goodness to the Switch, just for a few more subscriptions? Or something more controversial? I think, and I have to stress that this is my opinion, that Microsoft is moving away from consoles entirely, quitting the competition and moving instead to bumping up their PC support, and bringing in a new mobile/ home console audience through Nintendo. Think about it, if MS stopped producing Xbox consoles and became just a distribution platform they could bring a ton of classic or exclusive games to both PC and Switch through a subscription service and if they integrated that with Xbox Play Anywhere you could take games that you bought through your PC and play them on your Switch. Now, of course, this is all circumstantial, lots of ifs and mays and the like but with the benefit of the doubt, it makes a lot of sense. It is a fact that the Xbox consoles haven’t been selling as well this generation and if the money used to make them transferred into this idea of supporting the game distribution not the platform then all of those issues fade away. Plus Microsoft would still make bucket loads of cash because people would be buying and rebuying games for no other reason than to be able to play them on the go, essentially making the Switch a pseudo-Xbox console of its own. Without any of the marketing, any of the development or building anddistributing cost to boot, sounds like a good deal to me.

But it’s important to remember that this is all just speculation, rumors about major things like this have plagued the gaming industry since its beginnings and now is no different. But if I die mysteriously in the coming months just know that I was right!