Xbox has endured another challenging period. In the last 12 months, the platform holder has experienced the highs of completing a $75.4 billion acquisition to the inevitable lows that follow such a show of force within challenging market conditions – mass layoffs at Activision, the severance of ties with Toys for Bob, the cancellation of a new survival game from Blizzard, and the disappointing closure of Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks. Forza Motorsport and Starfield launched after years of anticipation, and proved to be about as divisive as the decision to bring select first-party titles to PlayStation and Switch. Heading into Summer Game Fest, there's this prevailing sense that something needs to change at Xbox.
The question which the Xbox Games Showcase needs to answer on June 9 is what, exactly, that might be. I've been writing summer prediction pieces about Xbox here at GamesRadar+ for coming up on six years now and I always seem to land in exactly the same place: the time has come for radical transparency. I still believe that this is true – Microsoft Gaming has struggled with messaging since the Xbox One era – but I'm not convinced that such an approach will be possible this time around. Not when you consider how increasingly muddled the wider strategy from Phil Spencer and the rest of the Xbox executive leadership team has become over time.
