There has been a talk about Microsoft Gaming and Xbox in general and not for the good in terms on how plausible will be to maintain its position as part of the “big three” along Sony (with PlayStation) and Nintendo and how futures look blurry.
To mitigate this blurriness, Microsoft Gaming CEO, Phil Spencer, took advantage on the proper media tour post-Microsoft earnings to give some visualization on the state of the gaming market for Xbox.
Xbox is NOT quitting hardware business
Hardware historically hasn’t been a great forte in terms of Xbox Earnings, and of course, with the entry of Activision Blizzard as part of the earning has not helped matters at all.
Added to the fact that the current Game Pass Cloud push includes resorting in partners had ware like Amazon’s Fire TV devices.
Burt despite on how the public perception might be, for Phil Spencer, is all part of the plan.
To Rolling Stone he said:
We’ll definitely do more consoles in the future, and other devices.
We think about hardware that can create unique value for our players or creators on our platform. We don’t need to do incremental hardware for our own benefit.
Does a new device really give you a unique experience on screen in some way? [It’s] less like the old days, going from the original Xbox to 360 – that was standard definition to high definition. No [it’s] arder ti show té Benefit.
Also, Spencer admitted that Microsoft is working heavily on one of the poor kept-secret, the Xbox device that will challenge the Steam Deck and Nintendo Switch in the portable gaming market, but we are still years away from a proper release, so chances about what “Microsoft wants to talk at The Game Awards” in terms of hardware…might be safe to not go high on expectations.
More releases outside Xbox and PC aren’t ruled out
Early this year, Microsoft surprised the gaming world releasing four games of Xbox Game Studios in other platforms, after a big push on exclusivity.
Phil Spencer, this time told Bloomberg that they are not feeling limited on approaching other platforms after being brought the possibility of the next Halo game available on Playstation5.
I do not see sort of red lines in our portfolio that say ‘thou must not.
Also, Spencer said to Bloomberg that Spencer said Xbox is still open to more acquisitions following last year’s $69 billion purchase of Activision Blizzard.
Methodical on expansion and debunking an Avowed theory
Finally with Game File, there was an opportunity to have Phil Spencer talk about how Microsoft Gaming and Xbox Game Studios sees the development of expansions for their first party games.
While there is no rulebook and developers are not obligated to add expansions, personally he dislikes “manipulative” expansions in terms of the expansion doesn’t serve the whole experience of the game to the user and for example, it is used to “fill a cliffhanger” technically speaking.
Finally, it was time to acknowledged what happened to Avowed that was delayed until February 2025.
And no, there were not a technical thing or anything, just that this Holiday season will be a busy one with Diablo IV new expansion, Call of Duty Black Ops 6, Indiana Jones & The Great Circle, and Xbox felt that Avowed could just be lost in the “new game” backlog unneedled.
