We get it, you’re a huge xbox fan and you’re disappointed it doesn’t have a release date. But let’s be clear here: this is 100% on Microsoft. Larian has made it clear they aren’t happy with the level of quality of the game on the S (believe specifically for split-screen) and they are holding out on a release date until solutions can be found. That is 100% their right, and you better believe if they released with a shitty performing S version there would be tons of articles, tweets, threads, etc moaning and calling them out on it (instead of the universal praise it is currently receiving). If Microsoft really wants the game on their console sooner they have options: They can help Larian get the S version running properly by providing developers/knowledge/tools/etc, or they could allow for games to have exceptions for certain game features on X vs S.

If anything, Larian have gone above and beyond what most other larger AAA companies put out: Cross-play, cross-save, DRM free, and a huge open-world full of enough options and branching paths to put basically every other RPG to shame. It’s clear they want to deliver a great game that has everything possible they can put in it to please their customers. And part of that is not putting out a crappy version of the game. If you don’t like it, maybe take it up with Microsoft; or wait patiently and see if they can’t optimize and get things figured out once they game releases on the other platforms and they can spend more time focusing on the xbox platform.

I think you are vastly minimizing the “plug and play” aspect of consoles and that the common person has a machine that can run games with a “minimal setup”. While PC gaming has plenty of benefits: I think you’re downplaying how much time, money, and energy you have to waste to PC game.

Steps to play on a console: 1) Turn on the system, 2a) Maybe if you’re unlucky and a new patch comes out the same day you want to resume playing you have to patch the game, 2b) Play game (possibly even resume playing where you left off so you’re literally instantly back into the game). Time-to-play: Maybe 20 seconds? (granted a little longer on last-gen, but also this gen you can be back in a game literally within 5 seconds).

Steps to play on a pc: 1) Turn on pc, 2) Turn on (or launch) steam/egs/gog/etc, 3) hope game was updated, 4) hope drivers are updated, 5a) launch game, 5b) maybe sign into another 3rd party launcher, 6) load fully into the game, 7) play game. Time-to-play: 1-5 minutes depending on if the computer is fully off or just in sleep. Possibly much, much longer.

But WAIT, maybe the game isn’t running great so you have to alt+tab out and make sure you didn’t leave something running in the background, or your 100+ tabs in chrome/ff/etc are hogging all the ram and needs to be closed; maybe new drivers came out that you need to download/install to get the game running right, maybe the new drivers made the game worse and you have to revert them. Maybe the controller you wanted to play the game on disconnected or otherwise malfunctioned and now you have to restart the game the get it to pick up the controller. Maybe the DRM on the game has hitched up and you’re locked out of the game. Maybe you get a windows update that closes the game for you so it can helpfully install whatever new updates are available for you. etc etc.

minecraft also a large number of things going for it.

1. It was(is) a single game
2. It was already multiplatform, and only the most suicidal company would take a game that was multiplatform and make it exclusive. Not including the backlash as players lost access to a game they paid for, but there would also be untold number of refunds that would need to be done, lawsuits (most likely) to handle, etc.
3. It already had a very large (and most importantly) young userbase that they could monetize on dozens of platforms.
4. If you followed the proceedings of everything that is going on you’ll have read that they actually wanted to make the new minecraft legends xbox exclusive. While the emails didn’t say what ended up making them change their mind, I would imagine being in a certain legal fight might have played a large role in it.
5. Exceptions happen, but I imagine that exception would be the appropriate word rather than norm. But I’d love to be proven wrong.

I doubt any company would want to give their competitor 20-30% of their profits, so in my mind it isn’t a matter of if, but a matter of when they start locking all their franchises off from PS. What will be most interesting to me will be how will they do it. Will they just drop franchises so they don’t have to face the backlash for turning a franchise into an exclusive? Will they just make up a new “franchise” with a new name but similar gameplay? Will they just slowly one by one exclusive them off to try and reduce blowback? Do it all at once to get it out of the way?

This generation has already been mostly played out and I don’t see large changes making a large difference, but once the next generation comes around in another 3-5 years I imagine they will want to be in a place where they can leverage all these franchises to get people excited to buy their new box over their competitors. And you do that with exclusives.