Phil Spencer spoke at China Joy in earnest about Xbox One’s woes with third party games. Following the reaction to Rise of the Tomb Raider, he will be focusing on first party for the console at this point forward.
These were Phil Spencer’s comments:
My strategy is more around our own first party franchises, and investing in franchises that we own, and probably fewer exclusive deals for third party content. I want to have strong third party relations, but paying for many third party exclusives isn’t our long term strategy.
This year, the fact that we’re shipping Halo 5, Gears of War, Forza 6, Fable; we can only do that and build that best line-up we’ve ever seen really on the back of franchises that we own. It’s great to have Tomb Raider as part of our line-up, but investing in first party, you’ll see more of that at Gamescom next week, is really core to our strategy.
Square Enix and Microsoft were roundly criticized for the exclusivity clause for Rise of the Tomb Raider, including by this website. Rightly or wrongly, this was perceived as another anti-gamer action by Microsoft, following their now aborted always online and game sharing policies for Xbox One.
Given Bayonetta 2 for Wii U received a similar reaction, but this was not extended for exclusive third party PlayStation 4 game Bloodborne, there is a clear incongruity to how gamers reacted. Rather than call fans out on it, however, it seems Microsoft has ultimately chosen to bow out of the situation for the future.
What do you think about console exclusive third party games? Did you buy your current gen console/s for third party or first party games? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
