When it comes to Xbox, there is a clear goal that the team is striving for. Recently, Phil Spencer was on the Kinda Funny Games podcast, where Phil was interviewed on a few particular subjects. The biggest was the failure of Arkane Studios Redfall. However, the show wrapped up with what Microsoft is striving for when it comes to competition and finding a place in the market. You might be surprised to learn that Xbox doesn’t have a plan in place to out console the other big console gaming giants in the industry.
Phil Spencer doesn’t feel that Microsoft is in the position where Xbox can out console the likes of Nintendo and Sony. In fact, there’s no great solution on that front for Xbox as Phil states that Microsoft is in the third place when it comes to consoles, with a part of that being the different deals other competitors make, although Phil doesn’t go into detail on that front. We could look at Call of Duty, for instance, as PlayStation typically gets some extra incentives on their platform through deals that make it less enticing to play on Xbox platforms.
According to Phil, Xbox lost the worse console generation possible with the Xbox One. This was an era where players were gathering up digital game libraries, which could be carried over onto the latest console generation. We’re not in an era now where players only deal with discs or cartridges, making each new console generation a clean slate. So most consumers going into the retailers for a new console are likely already established with a digital games library for one of the gaming ecosystems.
That’s not to say Xbox is giving up on consoles. Instead, Phil states that their focus right now is to help creators. Creators want to build games that can be accessed on any screen, which Xbox strives to provide. With cloud gaming, Xbox Game Pass, consoles, and PC, there are several areas that Microsoft can provide developers for their upcoming video game releases.
Furthermore, we should see plenty of new exciting video game projects from Microsoft’s Xbox first-party studios soon. Next month we know that there will be an Xbox Games Showcase which should further highlight what’s coming out into the marketplace soon. Following will be a new deep dive showcasing Bethesda’s upcoming RPG, Starfield.
