Phil Spencer: There Are "No Plans" To Bring Xbox Game Pass To Nintendo Platforms

OMG Microsoft make up your mind.

i see that hopefully microsoft could bring rare replay to the switch

Nintendo lives another day.

"We have no plans to bring gamepass over."

The other day:

"We want to bring Gamepass over to every platform, including Nintendo!"

Microsoft : I want Game Pass on Nintendo Switch

Also Microsoft : Nah... Never mind.

Such a weird turn of events. It's like someone's playing telephone.

Sounds like Phil was saying what he wanted and Microsoft swooped in and told him he can't say that.

Mission failed before it even started.

Good, because I had "no plans" to subscribe to his rent-a-game service. I was setting up a new PC the other day and found out they want us subscribing to Office now, as though it's something folks use seasonally. Microsoft is going to have us all subscribing to air someday. Sheesh.

Didn’t they just say they wanted to? What the heck lol.

@tsubasa92
Absolutely though it’s also what MS wants as well but it’s too risky for them to actually say it right now, the more they talk about their long term plans like that the more likely regulators might actually do more than bark and roll over for them.

@Snatcher
They said "I want to do it but now I changed my mind. I just looking for attention so peoples will thinking about my product XBOX".

That came and went quickly. Lol.

The other day he said the exact opposite.

Is it really that hard?

I seem to be in the minority as a person who understands that the statements "I have no plans to do something" and "I want to do that thing" are not mutually exclusive.

Watch!

"I would really like to hang out at Puroland with Hello Kitty and Mimmy!"

This is a statement of interest. I'm talking about a thing that I would like to happen, if conditions were ideal.

"I do not currently have plans to go to Puroland because I'm not in Japan right now, and I'm not sure when I'll be back"

That is a statement of intent. It speaks to my current situation.

Both of these statements are simultaneously correct and accurate.

Also, if you're going to comment on something, at least pay enough attention to know that Tim Stuart and Phil Spencer are different people.

Microsoft still wants to sell Series X/S systems this holiday season. PS5 is outselling Xbox 2 to 1 with no sign of improvement for Microsoft, so they’re going to pivot to selling software on multiple platforms, just not quite yet.

@HeadPirate unfortunately as soon as someone mentions Microsoft / Xbox / Gamespass the mad 12 year old fanboys come out. They can’t read but just read the key words and start frothing at the mouth.

Apparently Gamespass is “stinky”

thats one crazy 180 right there

@HeadPirate i mean to be fair corporate speak kind of makes those distinctions less important. they stay purposefully vague so that they can just contradict themselves without a lot of backlash or legal action

@epicgamner

I mean, sure. They are all just spewing out the agreed on talking points, obviously. You're not wrong.

But my point is that if someone cares enough to post about something, they should care enough to read the actual names of the people you are commenting about, that's all.

@HeadPirate yeah no i get that but you have to admit this timing is pretty dang funny

@epicgamner

Haha, in Oct. 2009 Satoru Iwata went on live TV around 9pm Japan time and said Nintendo had no plans to release a new DS model.

At 8am the next morning, Nintendo officially announced the DSi XL.

I think ever sense that I've been a bit desensitized

I mean it makes sense that the CFO (and investors) wants gamepass everywhere. But the logistics behind getting that done will likely take years of not a decade. But for instance if that’s how they get parity for COD onto systems (as I doubt sony and nintendo want to give ms their dev kits) then that’s it right there.

This has been the only real news about Xbox since Starfield released and was forgotten about quickly. And it looks like there won’t be any other big game to talk about for a while, so expect more hypothetical news of Gamepass being put on toasters or cans of beans until they can get an exclusive triple A game to run on the service.

@HeadPirate yeah honestly nintendo is the KING of hypocrisy when it comes to this kinda stuff id be annoyed if it werent so funny to see every time

It had to be cloud-based, no one cares.

Is anyone actually dreaming that Microsoft will somehow go third party? Wake up lol! I think the mixed messaging simply comes from the fact they would love to have Gamepass on Paystation (of course they would!) but it would be a cold day in Hell before Sony agree. Sony want their own Gamepass service. Nintendo have a different business model that leans more heavily on physical games.

Is Phil finally understand that people on PlayStation and Nintendo platforms don't need his Game Pass, and they're not a part of his Xbox community? I hope so. Then he have a chance to be a good 3rd party publisher on this platforms.

@Burning_Spear it also shocked me when I was setting up my laptop. But I found out that you can still buy the full Office product line, and that cost me 50 bucks. Why would people go for the subscription instead, I didn't get it.

@Yalloo Because Office is either $149.99 (without Outlook) or $249.99 (with Outlook) if you purchase it legitimately through Microsoft. What you bought was likely a key from a third-party seller. They buy them from corporations that purchase licenses in bulk and then don't need all of them.

@Burning_Spear I bought it from Gamespot indeed. Just like buying the games from Nintendo directly you pay full price while if you buy from Amazon it's usually cheaper.
I just meant to say that the subscription was not the only option thankfully.
Even 250 bucks is pretty cheap seeing all of the programs included. Just Excel is in my opinion worth the price alone.

@GrailUK

Sony has the perfect balance. Their first party titles are not released day 1 on their service so sell in the millions on release then when sales die down they put the game on their service to keep folks engaged.

Microsoft's day 1 on Game Pass strategy cannot be sustainable. All their talk about Starfield was the amount of people playing not sales. They probably lost hundreds of millions on that release alone with lost sales.

It is why CoD was never in danger of not continuing to be released on Playstation etc because otherwise Microsoft would lose billions as 25 million+ existing subscribers would get the games essentially for free.

There will be a point where the higher ups at Microsoft will get fed up with the money hole that is the Xbox division.

@SBandy1 Indeed. When Microsoft talk about screens, they simply mean open system screens. TVs, PCs, tablets, phones. Which is fair enough. At last Spencer has actually said not to Sony and Nintendo, although he has skirted the issue as much as possible to keep those fans invested. As for Stuart's comments, again, it simply fuels internet speculation and keeps Microsoft relevant in the more dominant gaming space. They know what they are doing. Explicitly stating (for example) Elder Scrools will be Microsoft exclusive upsets the internet much more than 'we haven't decided yet.' And it's quite obvious Spencer is trying to play the good guy whilst trying to buy everyone up. Pretty cringy actually.

Just bring Diablo IV, Forza Horizon and Elder Scrolls

As I said earlier, the only feasible way for Xbox Game Pass to be on every screen, including those of their rivals, Microsoft would have to exit the console market and become a third-party publisher, like Sega. Otherwise, having it on rival platforms instead of their own means that fewer people would want to get an Xbox to begin with.

As it is, both the Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S have a combined total sales of 21 million. While not as bad as the Wii U, it is worse than the GameCube. Unless Microsoft can come up with a killer app or some gameplay gimmick (like the Wii's motion controls or the Switch's ability to "switch" between TV and handheld), they may end up going the way of Sega. Heck, by their own admission, they lost the console war between Sony and Nintendo.

It makes no sense for them to give people less of an incentive to buy their console if they bring Game Pass to PlayStation and Switch. At this rate, as much as I don't want them to exit the console market, they just might if they truly do plan on bringing Game Pass to their rivals.

What he really means is he Knows Nintendo and Playstation would laugh him out the room at their proposal. Playstation and Nintendo don't need Xbox as much as Xbox needs them.

Honestly reporting each time Phil changes his mind is just getting annoying.

Xbox was started specifically because, in the late 90s, MS was afraid that PlayStation would come to dominate the living room. That future has not come to pass, so I can imagine that there's less of an incentive to keep Xbox around for another generation. Software has always been more profitable than hardware, hence their acquisition of Activision.

And GamePass doesn't seem to be achieving much in the way of increasing their console sales. Or maybe it does, and people are not interested in Xbox anymore.

I hope that this means we'll see more titles on Nintendo platforms. The rumoured Fallout 3 and Oblivion remasters for instance.

@FishyS If your Gamepass stinks, could be something wrong with your Xbox. Overheating?

@Anti-Matter @VoidofLight They can’t seem to make up their mind can they? 😅

I guess they didn’t want to give console players even less of an incentive to own an Xbox.

@electrolite77 Fair point. Also, the fact that they released 2 consoles this generation does demonstrate their continued commitment to the console market as a whole.

We'll see how it plays out.

Is it me or does Phil Spencer need to talk less and act more?

@NintendoByNature so wierd that it's WEIRD !

Phil and Microsoft lie all the time so no surprises here
Now they have activision it's time to give the finger to all gamers shock 😜

Game pass is neat but I can’t ever imagine Nintendo allowing that on their platform because it’s like saying come play on Xbox instead.

@Andgiles62 oh no! I had a typo!

@NintendoByNature you mean illiteracy !

@Andgiles62 you're not supposed to space out punctuation funny guy. 🫠

It feels more like "Long-term, we want to be on all consoles, but short-term we can't."

Microsoft should start focusing on making actual games for their systems instead of flip or flop on either gamepass comes to other systems or not its no wonder why they lost the console wars in the first place.

There were yesterday the are not today i wonder whar comes tommorow microsoft switch 2

As long as it has atomic hearts, we don't want it.

@Joeynator3000 ikr

I can't see it happening unless there are major changes over at Nintendo in the long future (years and years from now). But it would be nice, especially if that meant more native versions of Xbox Studios games on Nintendo platforms.

Thank god, we don't need that Xbox stench over here.

Been three days since this article. https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2023/11/xbox-reiterates-interest-in-bringing-game-pass-to-every-screen-including-nintendo-platforms

Although I always suspected that gamepass wouldn’t be available on Sony and Nintendo consoles.

Yesterday Microsoft: 'Didn't you learn anything from love day?

Today Microsoft: 'That was yesterday moron!'

I mean who honestly thought it would have been possible??

Microsoft: i want gamepass on switch
Nintendo: laughs at them again
Microsoft: i don't want gamepass on switch

There's no point in trying to figure out Phil's words or motivations. He's just a idiot, plain and simple.

Phil Spencer is lying again. He took Xbox 3rd party on stage at E3 in 2017 and he himself stated he wanted more screens, not hardware sales. He already had Xbox and PC, so there's no other thing he would have meant aside from Nintendo and PlayStation. He's already dropped games on Nintendo long before now, and we already know he's greedy and wants a monopoly over the industry. Trust and believe, we will see anti-consumer-pass on Sony and Nintendo hardware soon, a 3rd party won't intentionally keep the largest markets off their table if they can help it.

@timp29 Everyone who's been paying attention, considering how often Phil Spencer has stated he took Xbox 3rd party, he was keeping all future Bethesda games multiplat, and he wants the Sony/Nintendo communities to be "apart of Xbox". It's crazy how naive the majority of the industry (journalists) and fans are when it comes to Phil and his intentions. Xbox is nothing more than Ubisoft or EA these days, not a hardware contender, and they haven't been competition to Sony or Nintendo in at least a decade now.

I think this is a case where two things can be right at the same time, even if they might seem contradictory on the surface. Maybe there aren’t any concrete plans for Game Pass to appear on a Nintendo or Sony console tomorrow. But maybe on their vision board for the brand, it’s a goal and a mission at some point

"no plans to bring Game Pass to PlayStation or Nintendo"
Is no one surprise by this....

I don't need more medicore games on my Switch or PS5.

So it’s not in there plans…. It was for a while

Seriously Phil can you stop talking please!