Xbox ditching hardware and exclusive games "makes sense," former Microsoft exec and Blizzard boss says, as "only a moron would continue" making consoles as games go third party

Player holding white ROG Xbox Ally X handheld with table in backdrop and iced coffee.

Former president of Blizzard Entertainment and former corporate vice president at Xbox Mike Ybarra has been pretty vocal about Xbox's recent decisions since he departed the company in 2024 (having originally left Microsoft for Blizzard in 2019, before Microsoft bought Blizzard a few years later). Last month Ybarra went as far to say "your console is dead" in response to an Xbox user, and with the launch of the ROG Xbox Ally X, Ybarra has commented on Xbox's console strategy.

An Xbox fan asked Ybarra why the ROG Xbox Ally uses Windows instead of just using the Xbox OS, to which he responded: "It makes sense to me since they are out of HW and exclusive games." Given Xbox's recent shift to porting its games to other platforms, with 2024's Indiana Jones arriving a few months later on PS5, while its big 2025 exclusives, Doom: The Dark Ages, The Outer Worlds 2, and Ninja Gaiden 4, all arrive simultaneously on the once-rival platform.