Microsoft Game Studios founding member claims “Xbox has no desire” to ship hardware

The past couple years for Xbox has been a bit of a whirlwind. From spending almost $100 billion on acquiring studios to becoming a 3rd-party games publisher, the future of Xbox is somewhat unclear. According to one of the founding members of Microsoft’s Game Studios (who worked at the company since 1995) “it looks like Xbox has no desire or literally can’t ship hardware anymore.”

Laura Fryer was one of the founding members of the Microsoft Games Studios division upon its creation back in 1995. During that time, Fryer served as executive producer, being responsible for the shipping of and involved in countless high profile Xbox games – including but not limited to Gears of War; Crimson Skies; Zoo Tycoon 2; Halo: The Master Chief Collection and more.

Taking to their YouTube channel with a video titled ‘The Future of Xbox’, Fryer used their years of experience at the company to comment on the current state of Microsoft’s consoles, claiming that the company’s Xbox Anywhere messaging is (as transcribed by VGC) “just marketing [and] style, with no substance.”

Explaining further, Fryer continued, “Obviously, as one of the founding members of the Xbox team, I’m not pleased with where things are today. I don’t love watching all of the value that I helped create slowly get eroded away. I’m sad because from my perspective, it looks like Xbox has no desire or literally can’t ship hardware anymore. So this [ROG Ally] partnership is about a slow exit from the hardware business completely.”

In alignment with many other think pieces regarding the future of the console/brand, Fryer added, “Personally, I think Xbox hardware is dead. The plan appears to be to just drive everybody to Game Pass. And let’s be clear, it has a lot of value. I’m thinking that might be why they decided to charge $80 for Outer Worlds 2… And here’s the thing, maybe it will work.”

Fryer concluded by offering a bit of hope to Xbox fans, stating: “Next year marks the 25th anniversary of the Xbox, and I’m sure that they will have some big announcements and plans for honoring the milestone. Maybe next year is the year. Maybe next year is the year that the fog will clear and all of us will see the beauty in these latest announcements. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”

With each new major decision by Microsoft, it is becoming both more and less clear as to what the long-term plans for the brand is. As fryer stated, we will just have to wait and see.

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KitGuru says: What do you think of the brand in 2025? Is their messaging clear or muddled? Do you see it surviving another 25 years? Let us know down below.

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