When Xbox went on their buying spree, Xbox fans were excited about the future. Xbox was taking gaming seriously once again and was about to bring exclusives from the likes of Ninja Theory and IneXile on top of games like Halo and Gears Of War. Then they bought Bethesda. Holy crap maybe Elder Scrolls and Fallout might be exclusive? Xbox is back baby! Then came the news of Activision. Exclusive Call Of Duty and Diablo? Awesome! Looking back, I think this may have been the worst thing ever for Xbox console users.

Before you go running to the comments though hear me out. I’m talking specifically Xbox as a console and its fans. For Microsoft I think it will still be great. The mobile side of the deal and Call Of Duty alone is basically yet another license to print money for Microsoft. But for the core Xbox business, I think if you pulled them behind closed doors, they regret it. When Acitivision was purchased, things changed for the worse for the console.

This is purely my opinion of course, but I think that purchase made Microsoft pay much closer attention to Xbox, which is understandable when you drop upwards of 70 billion dollars in a single purchase. Even for a company the size of Microsoft that amount of money is enough to perk up for. And once Satya Nadella and the board did perk up, they took over and changed the vision of the company. They don’t want to play the long game here, they want to make that money back. In their eyes the quickest way to do that is start selling games everywhere. It’s shortsighted in my opinion, but I can see some of the logic behind it. I just don’t think its what Xbox execs had in mind when they brought up the idea.

At seemingly every new announcement Phil Spencer and his team have come out and spoken on exclusives and the Xbox console mattering. They want to make the best games and have the best hardware. That combination can take Xbox back to being on top in their minds. Bethesda and all the smaller studios would be a great first step in that direction. The core business is Xbox in their eyes. But not Microsoft, not anymore. Microsoft wants to go to its software roots, sell as much of it as possible and if it kills the hardware so be it. The money is in the software.

This has been the struggle since the purchase of Activision and a big part of the fans anger with the messaging from Xbox. I genuinely think Phil and co want Indiana Jones (and everything else for that matter) to be Xbox console exclusive and build up the Xbox brand along with Avowed and Gears and Fable and on and on. Will Indiana Jones by itself make more money being sold elsewhere? Absolutely. But it was the potential for it to bring more people to Xbox and Xbox Game Pass. You take a small hit on the game but gain it elsewhere. This is always how the platform holders operate. Spider-Man would sell more copies if it wern’t exclusive, but it sells more PlayStation’s for Sony which then turns into more sales of other games.

And I think if they didn’t purchase Activision that would still be the plan. At the very least they would let it play out for a few years before pivoting. Give these purchases a chance to shine and see if they can turn the fortune of the console around. If it didn’t then you can always shift your focus to a more multiplatform approach. I think in the minds of Xbox exec’s when they bought Acitivision, a combination of all those exclusives with a Call of Duty day 1 on Game Pass would be a sure fire way to revive the Xbox and rejuvenate the fan base.

Instead, they’ve made many Xbox console users feel like they don’t matter. I think some of that is an overreaction, but much of it is valid. I personally don’t care if games go to PlayStation or not. That won’t change my enjoyment of any of these games. But if I start seeing many games that I want to play skip the platform (yes yes i know SNK vs Capcom is skipping it) because the console is selling poorly and Xbox is treating the platform like an afterthought, I’ll definitely care. And this is the feeling of many Xbox gamers. If games will skip the platform and they can just buy these Xbox games elsewhere, they might as well move on.

And for what it’s worth I still think some games will stay exclusive. I have no idea what will or won’t go multiplatform, but as we sit here today I don’t think everything will. If I’m wrong, well it wouldn’t be the first time.

This ultimately brings me to my point. If there was no Activision purchase, we’d be having a much different conversation than we are today, and Xbox users wouldn’t feel like they don’t matter. They’d lose the Call Of Duty on Game Pass aspect but they’d be celebrating Indiana Jones coming out in a few months along with Towerborne and Avowed and all the other games and the vision for Xbox would be Phil Spencers, not Satya Nadella’s. And for Xbox fans, I think they liked Phil’s better.