Some influencers will make a drama out of anything—drama equals engagement, after all—and in the latest wave of behaviour that makes me hope that no one is treating these influencers as role models (or indeed being influenced by their behaviour), a bunch of Xbox influencers (viaVGC) have thrown their toys out the pram overMicrosoft’s possible plans for Xbox games to go multiplatform.
The content put out by Xbox influencers has been all kinds of dramatic. Some of it’s fairly whimsical, likeDOC_DARK1985’s YouTube songwhich surely is a self-aware meditation on the absurdity of console tribalism (though really it’s hard to tell what’s serious and what isn’t in this strange realm console war influencers)? A few out there have already traded in their Xbox Series and bought PS5s in protest, while oneKidSmoovewent off on a foul-mouthed tirade, calling for graphic artists to fix his YouTube and X banners to “get all this Xbox shit off my profiles, and for us “journos stop reporting on this Xbox shit every other minute fucking with our emotions!!!!!!”
This person has nearly 16,000 followers on Twitter/X. Just let that soak in for a minute.
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The X-Pocalypse Is Here
But trying to dig into it deeper, it’s a struggle to grasp what exactly is the problem for these people, beyond an irrationally territorial attitude about which people get to play Xbox games. Should Xbox games go multiplatform, then that will have zero effect on Xbox owners’ ability to continue enjoying those games, while a bigger revenue stream by going multiplatform offers Xbox more money to invest into making more games. The closest I saw to a reasonable explanation—which turned out not to be that close at all—came fromKlobrille, who has 158,000 followers, began engaging in a discussion with one of his followers about why he’s abandoning the Xbox brand, saying:
“It’s not the strategy change itself I have any problems with. More games for more people isn’t a bad thing (even if this is clearly a one-way-street). It’s more about already made statements are about to be drawn obsolete, resulting in a breach of trust and credibility.”
When the followers sought to continue the discussion, asking what “breach of trust” he was referring to, Klobrille went quiet. That seems to be the general gist of the raging influencers—some kind of treachery, broken promises, but what exactly? No one knows. I’m sure if you trace things back far enough you can probably find Spencer or some past head of Xbox talking about ‘games you’ll only find on Xbox,’ but does that really add up to promises? I don’t think so.
For some reason no one’s ever upset about how ‘exclusive’ Xbox and PlayStation games have been coming to PC foryears.
And that kind of epitomises this childish, territorial attitude that’s plagued games consoles, particularly since the rise of social media. I think (and hope) that this is a vocal minority we’re talking about here, and not representative of the wider gaming ecosystem which I like to think has more of a ‘live and let live’ attitude; where we thrive in sharing and recommending games to our fellow gamers and hope that they are able to play them irrespective of the platform they own. Otherwise, you’re just married to an idea of a brand, and that’s a sad way of viewing the world.
Blind Rage
Seriously, can anyone explain the rationale behind raging at a games console manufacturer because they’re deciding to branch their games out to another console? Is there a ‘thinking’ behind this, or is it some kind of overload in the limbic system where peoples’ blind tribalism takes over their ability to see that this really doesn’t matter? Even the very idea of ‘exclusivity’ is kind of arbitrary, because for some reason no one ever talks about how ‘exclusive’ Xbox and PlayStation games have been coming to PC foryearsnow. Why draw the line at one platform and not another?
Maybe it’s just an age (or maturity) thing, but this outcry makes me want Microsoft to double down hard on their multiplatform strategy, in the hope that doing so will accelerate the downfall of the increasingly outmoded idea of ‘console wars’ and the man-children who prop it up with their vapid online ire.
