{"id":115160,"date":"2020-07-08T21:16:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-08T21:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gamasutra.com\/view\/news\/366118"},"modified":"2020-07-08T21:16:00","modified_gmt":"2020-07-08T21:16:00","slug":"report-xbox-encouraging-publishers-to-keep-cross-gen-game-upgrades-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/07\/08\/report-xbox-encouraging-publishers-to-keep-cross-gen-game-upgrades-free\/","title":{"rendered":"Report: Xbox &#8216;encouraging&#8217; publishers to keep cross-gen game upgrades free"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Third-party games aren\u2019t required to participate in Xbox\u2019s Smart Delivery cross-buy program to bridge the current and next-gen gap, but the console maker is reportedly urging publishers that embark on their own cross-generation promotions to offer those upgrades free of charge.<\/p>\n<p>Sources on the publishing side of things <a href=\"https:\/\/www.videogameschronicle.com\/news\/next-gen-game-upgrades-should-be-free-xbox-tells-developers\/\">shared as much with VGC<\/a>, noting that Xbox is reportedly asking publishers with cross-gen games in the mix not to charge players to upgrade the Xbox One version to the Xbox Series X version.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>On top of that, those sources say that Microsoft is urging those that don\u2019t participate in its own Smart Delivery program to offer their own cross-buy promotions, similar to what EA already has in the works with a limited-time \u201cdual entitlement\u201d to allow cross-generational upgrades for some digital games.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s a messy space to navigate on both sides of the fence given that a number of triple-A heavy-hitters are expected to arrive on both current and next-gen platforms later this year. Systems like Xbox&#8217;s Smart Delivery option aim to offset some of the uncertainty its players may have when buying new Xbox One games only months before a new console launches, but even then&nbsp;unknown factors like various third-party cross-buy policies or even the yet-unannounced launch dates for new consoles leave a lot of room for confusion.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Third-party games aren\u2019t required to participate in Xbox\u2019s Smart Delivery cross-buy program to bridge the current and next-gen gap, but the console maker is reportedly urging publishers that embark on their own cross-generation promotions to offer those upgrades free of charge. Sources on the publishing side of things shared as much with VGC, noting that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":115161,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=115160"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115160\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/115161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=115160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=115160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=115160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}