Microids plans to release many games this year. With Noob – The Factionless, Flashback 2 or The Smurfs 2 The Prisoner of the Green Stone, we can say that the French publisher has plenty to do, but unfortunately a title is missing on Xbox.
Inspector Gadget – Mad Time Party will not be released on Xbox
The new Inspector Gadget – Mad Time Party game, expected for the month of September, will only be released on PC, PlayStation 4, PS5 and Nintendo Switch. No Xbox version is planned and this is quite surprising given that the publisher is used to releasing its games on most media.
Faced with this unfortunate disappointment, Xbox players rose to the credo to find out why Microsoft platforms were sidelined.
Is releasing a game on Xbox not profitable enough?
In response to a player asking the company why the Inspector Gadget game was released on all platforms, but not Xbox, Microids replied on
Twitter :
If the demand is strong enough, we will consider the possibility of offering the title on Xbox.
Faced with this response, it seems obvious that the publisher considers that it would not be profitable to work on an Xbox version given the visibly low demand from players, understanding by this that the fleet of Xbox consoles in homes is less important than that of PlayStation or Nintendo.
It is however quite difficult to know how Microids judges the demand by platform for such a title. The problem could also come from Microsoft and the prerequisites linked to the publication of a game on Xbox, but also from the Xbox Game Pass which cannibalizes sales, as affirmed by Microsoft at the CMA in February.
It is indeed very common to see Xbox players not buying a game because they think it will arrive sooner or later in the service, and this behavior could come into consideration when choosing to publish a game on Xbox. One and Xbox Series X|S by publisher.
Hopefully, however, the case of Inspector Gadget – Mad Time Party is just an isolated case and not the start of a trend among AA game publishers.
