It may have been a bit of a surprise several years ago now when Microsoft revealed that Xbox One video games would be coming to the PC platform. For some, it would kill off any need or desire to purchase an Xbox console. However, according to Phil Spencer, Xbox is less interested in the need of players adopting their latest hardware and more interested in players simply enjoying their video games in whatever platform available within Xbox’s ecosystem.
For fans of Xbox, it looks like Microsoft is really turning things up with their line of exclusives. Recently, Microsoft started the purchase process of ZeniMax Media which would flesh Microsoft’s Xbox first-party studios out quite a bit with the likes of Arkane Studios, id Software, MachineGames, Tango Gameworks, and easily the biggest out of the batch would be Bethesda Softworks. That has left some fans wondering just what Microsoft has plans for with this new acquisition. Unfortunately, until the deal is finalized which should be early 2021, it’s not legal for Microsoft to start charting out plans and goals from these studios.
“The question that we get then is sometimes, what about this specific closed platform? And that I really mean there is we’re either kind of all in or not all in on one of these closed platforms. I don’t think its healthy where for every first-party game that comes out I have to get the question, is that coming to Switch or is that coming to Switch, and it not because, I love Nintendo and our relationship with what we are doing, that want us to be all in or not, and there is this expectation from customers like there is now on PC, where people don’t really question – there might be some timing things, on when certain things happen – but if we are shipping a first-party game it’s coming to PC. If we are shipping a first-party game on PC it’s coming to Steam and our own store. Like we built an expectation from our customers. That’s my goal, and then there will be, as you said, maybe little anomalies every so often and because of relationships and certain developers that want to do certain things, but my goal is: make games as playable by as many people as possible so that this art form continues to grow. And I wanna be all in on the places where Xbox is, so a customer of those platforms can have an expectation that I’m gonna get to go play. And I feel good about the games that we are building, and I feel good about that on PC…”
Phil Spencer
What we can expect from Microsoft is that whatever software that comes out from Xbox will eventually be available on PC if it’s not available right at launch. From there, there’s going to be access to these games from the likes of their own Microsoft store or the Steam digital marketplace. Phil Spencer went on to say that the team may have claimed they were committed to the PC platform years ago but it was clear that they were not doing much. That’s, of course, changed recently with PC becoming a very mainstream part of Xbox.
