“When we don’t damage Xbox and we can grow our business, using what the other platforms have, we’re going to do that. And I think there is an interesting story for us of introducing Xbox franchises to players on other platforms, to get them more interested in Xbox.”
Microsoft has been talking about making Xbox “the Netflix of games” for years, introducing the subscription Game Pass service, an offering on PC and the ability to stream games from the cloud. But Spencer said the game industry as a whole also had to meet players where they were.
Sea of Thieves may soon be available on PlayStation and Switch.
“If we don’t get to growing as an industry, the industry will struggle. And there’s really only two choices for how you grow. Do I find new ways to monetise players, to get more money from the players that I have? Or do you think about, how do I expand the business I have, by finding new players,” he said.
“It’s not about games in service of a device, but rather, the devices that people want to play on should be in service of making the games as big and popular as they possibly could be.”
Implicit in that statement is the reality that you won’t get games the size of Fortnite, Minecraft or Call of Duty by publishing solely on one console, especially as Xbox hardware is being roundly outsold by Nintendo and Sony’s offerings.
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Yet the executives were also keen to reassure players that Xbox as a platform is not going anywhere. Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty said all Microsoft’s games would still come to Xbox consoles, and would be included in Game Pass on day one, which would not be the case on other consoles.
Games going to other platforms would also benefit Xbox players, he said, as they could play their favourite games with their friends who don’t have Xbox consoles. And being able to access your digital games for decades after you’ve purchased them was a tenet of the Xbox platform.
Xbox president Sarah Bond said Game Pass was now at 34 million subscribers and would continue to grow, with Activision Blizzard games set to start populating the service soon. Its 2023 blockbuster Diablo IV will be the first, on March 28. She said Xbox would continue to grow its PC and cloud offering and will expand onto other systems, but will also continue to build bespoke devices to provide a “flagship gaming experience”.
“There’s some exciting stuff coming out in hardware that we’re going to share this holiday. And we’re also invested in the next-generation road map,” she said.
“What we’re really focused on there is delivering the largest technical leap you will have ever seen in a hardware generation, which makes it better for players and better for creators and the visions that they’re building.”
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