I just cant see how this would work. I mean for example Sega is going to release Yakuza (7) Like A Dragon
on the PS4, Xbox One (+ Series X) and Steam / PC this year.
It took them forever to bring back this series to the western Playstation market,
and even longer to finally bring them to Steam and Xbox.
Imagine if they would announce that the next Yakuza game will be Xbox exclusive.
Thats a terrible idea. Thats pretty much saying "thanks for the support guys, but f you. Buy a Xbox now."
It would mean nothing but trouble for Microsoft, Xbox, Sega, and RGG Studio.
And even if it just affects the japanese market, its still a terrible idea.
It makes sense that the Switch is super popular and the PS4 is kind of popular,
because they have tons of japanese IPs and the consoles are japanese trademarks.
The Xbox is not made by a japanese company and it doesnt have a lot of japanese IPs.
Now if they want to change that by making Sega games exclusive to the new Xbox,
that wont change anything unless Microsoft bought tons, like tons and tons and tons and tons and tons
of japanese companies / IPs. Otherwise all thats going to happen is that Sega games will sell even less in Japan.
You can maybe catch some hardcore Sega fans with this but thats not going to compensate the missing sales numbers
of people who didnt switch over to Xbox.
Same for the world wide market. This will only work if Microsoft somehow was able to buy
IPs that only were available on the PS4 / Nintendo Switch before. Tons of them. Just Sega is not enough.
Otherwise they are just going to annoy Sega fans for no reason.
And even if they had such a deal with Sega in Japan or worldwide,
do we really believe that Shenmue 4 would be a part of such a deal?
Like Microsoft funded Shenmue 4 (directly or indirectly) to push the new Xbox or their game repertoire?
Like to make it look like Microsoft is our friend because they funded Shenmue 4?
Nah, i dont believe that. No chance.