No matter what players believe after watching the April Fools' Day video, xbox I won't be buying Steam anytime soon. Microsoft is known for using its purchasing power through Xbox to purchase developers to add to its Xbox Game Studios portfolio. Since the launch of the Xbox One in 2014, Microsoft has made notable acquisitions of developers such as Mojang Studios, Ninja Theory, Obsidian Entertainment, and Double Fine. We'll then take this to the next level as we move into the Xbox Series X/S generation and acquire major autonomous publishers like Bethesda and Activision.
Meanwhile, 20 years after its launch, Steam remains the largest PC gaming market, with over 100 million monthly users. Thousands of games are released on Valve's service every year, and it remains incredibly popular despite competition from the Epic Games Store. Steam also helps the case with frequent game discounts, especially during notable seasonal sales. Valve has also expanded its reach by launching the Steam Deck portable gaming console in 2022, allowing gamers to enjoy a vast library of games on the go.
New Xbox Boss May Be Planning Big Game Pass Pricing Changes
New leadership at the Xbox division is currently considering several options to attract fans by updating the brand's popular subscription model.
Searches for Xbox Steam acquisitions skyrocketed for April Fools' Day.
Pure Xbox reported on an April Fool's Day joke about Microsoft's possible acquisition of Steam. First, the famous April Fool's Day joke discussed a program called Xbox Game Pass Flex, a free version of Game Pass that replaces the loading times of Xbox games with full-fledged advertisements. Despite being just an online prank, it seemed like a plausible announcement considering the speculation that Xbox would be adding advertising to Game Pass. It turns out that this is just one of the notable Xbox jokes that circulated on April Fool's Day.
According to Google Trends, the top six Xbox-related searches were related to Xbox's possible acquisition of Steam. Apparently, the increase in searches comes from TikTok by a user named jacobweeby. He posted a video claiming that Microsoft had acquired Steam for $10 billion. The video, which has amassed more than 850,000 views and 75,000 likes in less than 24 hours, mentions that Xbox plans to combine with Steam to create a unified library across consoles and PC. Despite one of the video's hashtags listing it as a skit, commenters were very confident that the skit was real, which is likely why Google searches spiked.
April Fool's Day is a prime time for the gaming world to deliver fake announcements to unsuspecting gamers. As always, some of our most popular titles include: Overwatch and fortnite We've added April Fool's Day content to the game this year. These jokes aren't just limited to developers and publishers. Because fans and content creators with large followings will create fake news in the world of video games. Jacobweeby's video is just that and not a legitimate indicator that Microsoft is making a deal to acquire Steam.
Still, it's fair to understand why gamers would believe this news, even if Xbox has no plans to outright acquire Valve's platform. Xbox has previously teased some Steam integration on the Xbox platform, to the point where the ROG Xbox Ally handheld is compatible. Additionally, current reports about Microsoft's upcoming Xbox console, Project Helix, indicate that Steam games will be available immediately. So while Xbox's future likely lacks a proper acquisition of Steam, this April Fool's Day video may not be too different from what Microsoft plans to deliver next generation.
