Xbox almost shut down Fallout 76; had to take it to a PlayStation service to save it

The Xbox leaks continue and now we know that Phil Spencer questioned the future of Fallout 76. As you probably remember, Bethesda's title had a very complicated start and took a long time to stabilize. Because of this, the Xbox boss entertained the idea of shutting down the game for good.

The reason? The title was not meeting the number of players expected by Xbox, so in 2021, the possibility of abandoning it was considered. However, the title was saved thanks to 2 factors: the great work of Bethesda and its arrival on a PlayStation service, something that Spencer authorized.

Xbox came close to shutting down Fallout 76

In a leaked email, Spencer suggests that they should drop support for Fallout 76 if they fail to reach the goal of 10 million average users per month. At the time the title was still far from the goal, so Xbox entertained the idea of bringing it to PlayStation Now, Sony's former cloud gaming service.

Spencer says he has no problem with the game coming to that platform, as long as it helps reach the player target they're looking for. He states that he is willing to do so even if they see PlayStation Now as a competitor to Xbox Game Pass.

He even reveals that they did not allow Minecraft to come to PlayStation Now precisely because of this. However, the situation for Fallout 76 was different and it needed the player boost that Sony's service could give it. In the end, Bethesda's game did launch on that platform in October 2021.

"In my view Fallout 76 is in this interesting place. Obviously started rough. Team stays focused on improving and finding larger audience. Feels like we either need to see this thing getting to 10M MAU across all platforms or decide to move on from it and if you believe PSNow can support it gaining relevance then I'm supportive," Spencer stated in the email.

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