Summary
Xboxhead Phil Spencer recently shared his thoughts on the future direction of the platform in an interview, calling for the inclusion of Nintendo and PlayStation users in the Xbox community. Despite relatively tepid sales of this generation’s lineup ofXboxconsoles, its Game Pass service is continuing to grow in popularity and looks to feature heavily in the brand’s cross-platform strategy moving forward.
With parent companyMicrosoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzardfinally pushing through, on paper Xbox now finds itself with a cachet of exclusivity for future releases on the console. Despite this newfound advantage, Spencer believes that console exclusivity, and in turn, participating in the “console wars” is an antiquated way of guaranteeing the platform’s long-term success in the market.
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In a recent interview withFamitsu, Phil Spencer sat down with the Japanese publication to talk about the evolving role of Xbox in the video game industry. Specifically, Spencer discussed how he views Xbox’s future as platform-agnostic. Despite holding the cards to makeCall of Duty,Overwatch 2,Diablo 4, and a myriad of other wildly popular Activision Blizzard titles Xbox-exclusive, Spencer has no plans to push the platform in that direction.
This perspective isn’t anything new from the Xbox boss, as Spencer also went on record in another interview earlier this year to say thatXbox’s raw hardware sales numberswill not be a primary driving force for its long-term success. Instead of prioritizing hardware sales above all, Spencer’s long-term goal is to improve the quality and volume of games available to everyone using Xbox’s services, regardless of their preferred platform. In the short term, this means a constant supply of high-quality games for Xbox’s growing cross-platform community. In the Famitsu interview, Spencer cited a target of one high-profile Xbox game release every three months as a company goal.
“Xbox is a community of players, so it’s important to build a community of players across a variety of platforms, which gives the community and the brand even more strength. Just as we think of ROG Ally and Steam Deck as part of the Xbox community, we need to think of the many Nintendo Switch and PlayStation users as part of the Xbox community in the future.” - Phil Spencer, Famitsu interview
It should also be noted that Spencer’s vision for the future of Xbox is already gradually taking root in the Japanese gaming market. In the interview, Spencer noted that the Japanese PC game market has nearly doubled over the past three years, largely thanks to improved accessibility. For instance,budget-friendly AMD and NVIDIA GPUshave re-entered the market following a period of elevated prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
More encouragingly for Xbox, the number of Japanese PC Game Pass users has reportedly quadrupled in the same period according to Spencer. Given therising popularity of handheld PCslike the Steam Deck and ASUS ROG Ally, this trend looks to continue worldwide as more and more users gain access to what is arguably the best deal in gaming: Xbox Game Pass.
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate
Xbox Game Pass Ultimate is the highest tier of Microsoft’s flagship game subscription service that offers over 100 game titles that you can play with a single purchase, making it one of the most outstanding value propositions of the Xbox ecosystem to date.
