Phil Spencer has personally acknowledged the leaks of multiple Xbox documents and made his own comments on them.
On Twitter, Phil said this:
“We’ve seen the conversation around old emails and documents. It is hard to see our team’s work shared in this way because so much has changed and there’s so much to be excited about right now, and in the future. We will share the real plans when we are ready.”
It has now become clear that the Xbox document leaks is the biggest single leak in the industry since the Nintendo Gigaleak from a few years back. That leak involved production assets, including concept art, that weren’t used in the games.
Because these documents were being used in the FTC case vs the Microsoft – Activision deal, Microsoft was obliged to show the courts a lot of confidential information. The leak was avoidable, but not the result of hacking or social engineering. Microsoft shared links to their unredacted data to the courts, as they were required to do. The courts then shared those links directly to the public, without checking if documents were redacted.
The breadth of the leak was such that we had already reported nine separate articles on it, and we might still do so for the rest of the week. We’ll give a quick roundup of each revelation below:
- Microsoft is planning a mid-generation upgrade for their entire Xbox line. This includes a new controller with gyro, and upgraded hardware for all SKUs. However, none of the new Xbox Series consoles have optical drives.
- Microsoft is making a staggering amount of money thanks to Game Pass, so much so that it continues to be lucrative even if they remain the third player in the console market.
- Microsoft had an internal discussion about acquiring Nintendo in 2020. Phil personally said that it would be a ‘career moment, but we should also remember he explained why it wasn’t possible.
- Bethesda’s future lineup includes remasters of Fallout 4 and Oblivion, sequels to Doom, Dishonored and Ghostwire Tokyo, & 2 codenamed projects.
- Microsoft had an internal discussion about getting Game Pass to run on PlayStation 5 using that console’s web browser.
- Microsoft has plans to offer customizable Xbox consoles in the future.
- Phil said that Xbox had a ‘huge hole’ in their lineup for 2022, because they were forced to delay both Redfall and Starfield. While that year is remembered for the PlayStation 5’s exclusives, Xbox was still a great platform for many third party games, especially on Game Pass.
- Phil almost killed of Fallout 76 because of a lack of players. No surprise here, but as we know, that ultimately did not happen.
- Lastly, we learned about some of the fees Microsoft paid to get big games onto Game Pass, and they are staggering. For example, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor cost them $ 300 million to license for Game Pass.
If Phil is to be believed now, some things listed here, such as possibly the Xbox Series refresh being all-digital, may already no longer be true. Of course, Microsoft is now tied up that they can’t comment on any of this. This isn’t because they’re trying to deny any of it is true, but because speaking up about changes, for example, would essentially be leaking even more information themselves, and they need to keep new secrets for their business.
So, Xbox fans will want to set up their calendars, to see what details of these leaks turn out to be true, and what will be changed.
