Microsoft’s E3 Conference laid out a clear road-map of the future. From the Xbox One Slim, to Play Anywhere, all the way through Project Scorpio.
The core of Xbox’s Play Anywhere campaign is that you can get the digital copy of an Xbox One game, and get the PC version for free, as well as the other way around. Jumping between systems is stated to be effortless, allowing your game progress to easily transfer back and forth.
“I always hesitate to be drawn into discussions of someone else’s strategy,” Sony’s Andrew House said during an investors meeting that took place this month. “I’m more than happy to talk about our own strategy. Yes, there was a big emphasis from the folks at Microsoft on Xbox and PC cross-play. It remains to be seen whether there is latent large consumer demand for that.”
Phil Spencer told The Guardian that “Sony is doing incredibly well with the PS4 but they’re doing something fundamentally different from us. We’re not building a strategy in response to what they’re doing, we’re building a response to what I see customers and gamers asking us for.”
Andrew House responded to the larger grand scheme of Xbox’s recent announcements from this past E3. Microsoft seems to be going all-in with the strategy, with games like Gears of War 4, Sea of Thieves, Forza Horizon 3, Scalebound, Halo Wars 2, and We Happy Few among the confirmed titles for the Play Anywhere system so far.
“But we don’t see it as really effecting or prompting any change in our thought process and strategy,” he continued. “We’ve always tended to believe that a proprietary ecosystem offering a very well crafted, unified client experience is the way to go, and that sort of remains our strategy.”
Surprisingly this statement clashes against the existence of the PS4K system, also known as the Neo. It seems Sony’s Summer is going to remain mostly quiet, with the PS4 Neo (or some sort of general update) popping up sometime in September at the Tokyo Game Show.