2025 A Pivotal Year for Xbox’s Future: As published on thegamer.com, both the Great Circle and Indiana Jones arrived in December, stuck in the awkward gap of the release calendar, missing out on Game of the Year nominations while being too early to claim the title of January’s unexpected hit.
Although its release timing may have tempered its reception, the game has still resonated with a dedicated audience.
Microsoft has recently unleashed the fact that over 4 million players earlier engaged with the game. While these figures are impressive, determining its true financial success is challenging due to its inclusion on Game Pass.
Nevertheless, this achievement provides Xbox with a solid foundation as it moves into 2025, a year where that strength will be essential.
2025 Might Mark a Major Turning Point for Xbox
Apart from Indiana Jones’ success, 2024 was an odd year for Xbox. It started with fans in turmoil, debating whether Microsoft was committed to the console market as it steered away from its own exclusivity.
Shortly after, Microsoft released former Xbox exclusives like Hi-Fi Rush and Grounded on Switch and PS5, only to later disband the Hi-Fi Rush development team.
As Xbox’s plan unfolded, it seemed like only a matter of time before more changes arrived. Were there restrictions on which titles could go multi-platform? Surely staple franchises like Halo and Gears of War would remain entact.
This Might Be the Perfect Time for Xbox to Step Away from Consoles
With a busy 2025 ahead, Xbox is well-positioned to reshape its business. While its role as a console maker has diminished, it boasts an impressive lineup of upcoming games.
As you see, it can well happen in the beginning of 2025 that Xbox has several major releases that could act as turning points. If leveraged strategically, these games could help shift the company’s focus from being a hardware maker with services to a service-first provider.
This would definetely require a complete shift away from exclusivity, ensuring its games, and more importantly, Game Pass are accessible across all gaming platforms.
The above titles happen to be Xbox exclusives, with Fable expected to be as well, but some of Microsoft’s major games have already expanded to multiple platforms.
Both the Outer Worlds 2 and Doom: The Dark Ages will be available on PS5, PC, and Xbox along with the next Call of Duty, which operates on a different level altogether. As of now, it seems to be the ongoing strategy of Xbox.
Xbox Game Pass Removing 6 Titles Today, Including 3 Well-Loved Multiplayer Games
