Two indie games have cancelled their Xbox versions

Two indie games have recently cancelled their Xbox versions, and while this is undoubtedly the result of the tough realities of games development, it could also show that game developers are putting more priority on PlayStation 5 and PC platforms than they are for Xbox.

2

Over the past few days, I noticed an interesting development: Indie game devs are starting to cancel the Xbox versions of their games. Recently, I've seen two games do this: 1348 Ex Voto, an extremely stylish medieval sword fighting game, and the other is a game set in a more recognizable and higher-profile brand, with Nickelodeon's Splat Pack, a combination of old retro games put in a single package.

Each group has its own individual reasons on why the Xbox versions are cancelled, and while there's no comments from Limited Run Games on the Nickelodeon Splat Pack other than a confirmation of the Xbox SKU cancellation, the team behind 1348 Ex Voto explained their situation.

• Read more: Hades 2 is going to be a Nintendo Switch 2 console exclusive when it launches

According to the devs behind the 14th-century action game, Ex Voto's Xbox version was scrapped so the team could focus on other platforms, implying that these selling points are more important than Xbox, a platform that has only sold 35 million or so Xbox Series X/S systems.

"While we previously announced that the game would be released on Xbox consoles, we have the unfortunate news that this is no longer the case. As release approaches for the indie team, priorities are constantly evaluated and sometimes must shift to deliver the best experience possible," the developer behind 1348 Ex Voto said.

"With this in mind, we made the difficult decision to cancel the Xbox version to focus efforts on the PC and PS5 versions of the game."

For its part, Limited Run Games only confirmed that the Nickelodeon Splat Pack's Xbox version was cancelled to Gematsu, but didn't provide reasoning as to why.

Is this a trend moving forward, that smaller-scale games don't release on Xbox in a sales capacity? Has Microsoft transformed the Xbox into a subscription box? It's hard to say for sure, and these are sensitive topics that could alienate a developer or publisher from Microsoft in the long run for speaking out, but it's still something to keep an eye on.