There’s a ton of hype for the video game industry right now. We’ve got two big companies getting ready to launch their next-generation video game console platforms into the market next month. While most of us are eyeing both the Xbox Series X along the PlayStation 5, some fans are more interested in the software that will be readily available for the platforms. If you ask Phil Spencer, the head of Xbox, what he would like to see in the future for the Xbox Series X platform, it would be single-player games.
Phil Spencer recently had an interview with Gameractor where the Xbox head stated that the Xbox Game Pass subscription is something they are really looking at when it comes to the content that players would likely gravitate towards. According to Phil, most would see Xbox Game Pass as an ideal subscription service for games-as-a-service type of model. However, that’s not what Xbox would like to see happen as it would mean that players would be going through very limited video games. Instead, Xbox Game Pass would be filled with titles for players to try out and potentially finish.
“I know some people that, when they’ve looked at the model around Game Pass, have assumed that Game Pass is actually a better model, if there’s more Games-as-a-Service games in the subscription. I actually argue the opposite and believe the opposite. The last thing I want in Game Pass is that there’s one game that everybody is playing forever, that’s not a gaming content subscription, that’s a one-game subscription, that’s WoW, right? So for us, having games in the subscription that have a beginning, middle, and end, and then they go on to play the next game, maybe those are single-player narrative-driven games, I just finished Tell Me Why, an amazing game from DontNod, those games can be really strong for us in the subscription. In many ways, they’re actually better than one or two games that are soaking up all the engagement in the subscription. I want a long tail of a lot of games that people are playing, and I think the diversity of online multiplayer versus single-player, we have to support the diversity there, and that’s my goal. If anything I’d like to see more single-player games from our first-party, just because that over time we’ve kind of grown organically to be more multiplayer-driven as an organisation.”
As a result, there’s an urge from Phil Spencer to see the first-party studios bring out single-player games that have a start, middle, and ultimately an end. These are games that players can go through fully and move on afterward. Furthermore, according to Phil Spencer, the Microsoft name as a whole has become more associated with multiplayer-driven video game titles and that’s something that we may see the company grow out of with the next-generation console platform. After all, there should be plenty of studios that Microsoft can use towards bringing out new IPs and established IPs thanks to the recent ZeniMax Media deal.
