In an interview with the Washington Post, Phil Spencer, Xbox chief and Microsoft’s executive vice president of gaming, says the industry needs to move past its petty squabbles and focus on the big picture.
“This idea that in order for the industry to grow, some companies must succeed and others must fail … it doesn’t help gaming reach the potential it should,” Spencer tells The Post.
The CEO says the industry should be encouraging creativity rather than squashing it. He likens the toxic culture to a movie exec hoping a competing film fails so there’s can succeed. Given the recent discussions concerning accessibility, diversity and harassment, the gaming industry should be more proactive in fixing what’s wrong rather than undermining rivals.
“If we’re going to spend energy, let’s go spend it on those things, not ‘my piece of plastic is better than your piece of plastic.’ I don’t think that’s a productive conversation,” Spencer says.
On Thursday, he revealed that Xbox Game Pass Ultimate, Microsoft’s Netflix-like subscription service for games, would include the new “xCloud” feature, which enables games to be played on mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. He adds that developers are already hard at work creating games for different platforms. As an example, Minecraft and Fortnite are already available on most devices.
Spencer says that gaming must be ubiquitous like social media platforms, which can be easily accessed from any device. Xbox hopes to follow Netflix’s lead in terms of anticipating users tastes. The Xbox Game Pass, which in April surpassed 10 million subscribers, will allow the company to make recommendations and also follow the lead of gamers the way Netflix subscribers often influence creative decisions at the streaming service.
He also addressed concerns that games are becoming increasingly expensive, a concern that has been heightened by the growing cost of next-gen games, noting there is now a greater selection of price points as well as numerous high-quality free-to-play games.
“I’m not negative on people setting a new price point for games because I know everybody’s going to drive their own decisions based on their own business needs. But gamers have more choice today than they ever have,” he says.
Mixer, Microsoft’s recently shuttered streaming service, didn’t make the impact the company had hoped for on the streaming market, yet it wasn’t for lack of trying, Spencer says, adding they hope to explore other alternatives in the future.
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On July 23, Xbox has a showcase scheduled that will offer additional information on the Series X as well as Halo Infinite, an upcoming first-person shooter game developed by 343 Industries and SkyBox Labs and published by Xbox Game Studios for Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
“In order for gaming to realize its full potential, we need to build the experience around the player, not around the device,” Spencer says.
Source: The Washington Post
