admin Last year, I suggested that Xbox would have a big year ahead of it in 2025but that this would again entail costs, including layoffs, price increases and other unpleasant news. And that’s more or less what happened this year. We got a lot of games, but that was about the only good news for Xbox in 2025.
That steady stream of big new games that were mostly good, sometimes even great, wasn’t enough to overcome a year in which Xbox desperately expanded in many directions while squeezing its wallet ever tighter in an attempt to be everywhere and increase profits substantially to appease Microsoft’s leadership. All the while, it faced an ongoing and growing consumer boycott due to the the technology giant’s continued involvement in Israel’s terrible war crimes against Palestine.
Everything is an Xbox and also more expensive
By 2024, Xbox started marketing the idea that many devices, including your phone and TV, were actually Xboxes. The idea was that through cloud streaming and the spread of Xbox Game Pass, you were already surrounded by devices that could play Xbox games. In 2025, this initiative continued, but like everything else that happened on Xbox this year, it came at a cost.
This was the year Xbox launched its first portable console. Well, sort of. The ROG Ally Xbox was essentially a ROG Ally handheld PC that Xbox stamped its name on. It came with a hefty price tag, $600 or $900 depending on the model you choose, and like most Windows portable gaming devices it’s wasn’t very good.
Meanwhile, in May, real Xbox consoles became more expensivewith the company announcing a price increase for both the Series X and Series S, as well as several console accessories. In 2020, the Xbox Series S cost just $300 and could often be found for less through sales. Today it costs $380. And if you want to buy it used from Xbox, it costs $330, more than a new console at launch. And while Xbox isn’t the only one raising console prices, these aren’t the only things that have become more expensive.
Xbox development kits reportedly received a big price hikemaking it harder for smaller teams to even make an Xbox game. And Game Pass became even more expensive and complicated after it was already destroyed last year. Now Game Pass Ultimate costs $30 per month instead of $20. But hey, at least you get it Fortnite Crew and now some old Ubisoft games? Other tiers of Game Pass have also become more expensive and don’t have access to DLC discounts or the new ones Call of duty. This service used to be the best deal in gaming, but now it feels more and more like a utility bill.
Microsoft even tried to launch its first $80 video game, The outside worlds 2in 2025. That seemed to have been a bit too much, though, and after people yelled at them, the price was dropped to $70. You can only squeeze people so hard before they pop.
Good new games are coming, while old hits spread to more places
Speaking of The Outside Worlds 2, Obsidian RPG was just one of many major Xbox-published games to launch in 2025.
Owning so many studios allowed Xbox to launch quite a few titles this year, including Custodian, Call of Duty: Black Ops 7, Granted, Oblivion remastered, Gears of War: ReloadedGrounded 2, The outside worlds 2, South of midnight, Doom: the Dark Ages, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3+4, And Ninja Gaiden4. Some of these were really good. Some were even great. Others were Call of duty.
Oh, and here’s an interesting side note: Xbox boss Phil Spencer has never tweeted about it Halo coming to PS5. Make of that what you will. Maybe someone is not happy with this decision…
Meanwhile, Xbox also brought War machines And Forza Horizon 5 to PlayStation 5. And next year, Halo coming to PS5! While this shift angry and confused to some diehard Xbox fans, the move was a huge success. Many of the new games mentioned above, most of them in fact, have also ended up on PS5 THPS 3+4 even launched on Switch. This strategy of bringing Xbox games to more platforms has led to strange months in which the majority of the most popular games on PS5 were published by Microsoft.
In a vacuum, ignoring everything already mentioned above and everything I’ll mention later, Xbox had one of its best years in history, with a very diverse set of games including big shooters, nostalgic remasters, single-player-focused adventures, multiplayer hits, and plenty of RPGs.
For a long time, people, including myself, criticized Xbox’s meager output. This particular criticism has been largely silenced, with the company releasing more games than most people can play in a year. Unfortunately, how and why Xbox got to this point sours everything.
Profits, layoffs and a boycott
So why does Xbox work so hard to squeeze its customers for every last cent, no matter how greedy, desperate, or aimless it looks in the process? Simple: Microsoft demands big profits.
That’s the main reason why Xbox is taking its games to more places. (Another is low console sales.) And it’s the same reason why the company is now charging a lot more for Game Pass, raising prices on consoles, and even trying to sell an $80 game. It’s also why Xbox remains cancel gameslying hundreds of people goneAnd studios close. That’s probably why the company has placed a number of advertisements on it old Xbox 360 machines with an update earlier this yearAnd it’s certainly the reason his future game streaming plans include ads.
As reported by BloombergSince about 2023, Microsoft CFO Amy Hood has mandated a 30 percent profit margin for Xbox. This is much higher than most other video game companies and publishers, which average 17 to 22 percent. It’s also much higher than where Xbox’s profit margin has historically landed, somewhere between 10 and 20 percent depending on the year.
With that information in hand, it makes terrible sense for Xbox to jack up prices on everything and try to sell its games and services on as many devices as possible. Microsoft demands more money, and Xbox’s leadership is desperately doing everything it can to feed the beast.
And in 2025, it became very clear how hard Xbox is being pushed to make more money than ever before to support Microsoft’s expensive AI plans and to make up for it huge Activision deal. This has resulted in every part of the Xbox being squeezed, cut, smothered or thrown away. Game Pass is a mess these days. The simple promise of getting one every new Xbox game day is long gone. Layoffs continue to occur. Games keep getting postponed and canceled.
And all of this is happening under the reality that a large and growing number of people are doing just that boycotting the company because of Microsoft’s connections to Israel as the country continues to attack and destroy Gaza and its people in a conflict that seems to have no end, as the death tollwhich includes many children, is increasing. Xbox doesn’t want to talk about thisclear, but as we move into 2026, it will become increasingly difficult for developers and executives to avoid this topic.
The future of Xbox looks bleak
What is an Xbox anyway? What is this brand? It was once a console, like the PlayStation, that contained a number of popular exclusive games. Now Xbox is everywhere, yet feels less relevant than ever before. I know fewer people who own and use an Xbox in 2025 than in the worst years of the Xbox One era. Yet many play Xbox games on their PC, Switch, PS5 or phone via streaming.
Xbox has promised that it is working on a new console, but it sounds like that could be the case an expensive high-end PC and not a traditional gaming device as we have come to expect from a console maker. It’s the kind of move that reinforces what many have already stated: Xbox is dead.
Whatever this is and will be in 2026, it will not be the Xbox of 20 years ago. Instead, it seems like Xbox’s future involves the brand and company being consumed and treated like Office by Microsoft. And that’s not my pitch. Those are the words of Microsoft’s CEO: “We want to be a great publisher, similar to the approach we took with Office,” Satya Nadella said in October.
So the future of Xbox and games like Halo is probably one where they’re available on many platforms, locked behind more paywalls, and you reluctantly pay for access every month, while the product keeps getting worse and more expensive. I agree it’s a bleak future, but for investors, this is probably what they’ve always wanted.
