Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer: Xbox is planning a 'business update event' for next week

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As rumors, reports, and scuttlebutt swirl around Xbox, Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer confirms a big update is coming.

Phil Spencer
(Image credit: Windows Central)

What you need to know

  • Rumors and speculation have grown exponentially over the last weeks regarding the possibility that Microsoft would be bringing Xbox first-party games to different consoles. 
  • The speculation hit critical mass over the weekend, with reports that titles like Starfield were being considered for a PlayStation 5 launch. 
  • Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer shared on Monday that there is a "business update event" for Xbox coming next week. 

Here we go. 

"We're listening and we hear you," Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer shared on Monday via Twitter. "We've been planning a business update event for next week, where we look forward to sharing more details with you about our vision for the future of Xbox. Stay tuned."

The comment comes after weeks of speculation and whispers around Xbox first-party games being ported to other consoles reached a fever pitch over the past weekend, with reports indicating that Starfield and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle were some of the titles being considered for a PlayStation 5 launch.

What does this mean for Xbox players?

The short answer is that we don't know. Despite the amount of speculation going on right now, no one outside of Microsoft completely knows what the plan will be. The longer answer is that it seems extremely likely at least some games (namely, Hi-Fi Rush) will be getting ported to other platforms. What's the logic for these games to go elsewhere? Will it be all games or some? How long after the Xbox and Windows PC launch should players on other consoles expect to wait? 

And that's all in addition to other already-outstanding questions, such as when Xbox players can expect to see Activision Blizzard games hitting Xbox Game Pass.

These are just some of the questions with no iron-clad answers right now. Hopefully, we'll be getting crystal-clear answers during the "business update event" next week. 

Analysis: Oy vey, what a week

Before everything happens, I'd want to emphasize that I empathize with the Xbox communications team, who are only doing their jobs in trying to message things and will, no matter what is actually going on, have a Herculean effort ahead of them in figuring out how to word things with precision. 

And that last word is exactly the key, precision. Everything will have to be spelled out, with no room for error or any possibilities of something being misconstrued. 

Speculation is a fool's errand, but I've never been one to shy away from predictions, so I'll put my thoughts out there for what we'll get. Games moving to being multiplatform should probably be expected across the board, with timed exclusivity of a year or two depending on the scope of the game and the size of the team in question. 

While I know some are worried about hardware, I'm not expecting that to go anywhere. People with digital libraries are locked in, and Xbox Game Pass can still be used to attract interest for anyone that hasn't yet decided to pick up an Xbox Series X or Xbox Series S console. 

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Samuel Tolbert
Samuel Tolbert
Freelance Writer

Samuel Tolbert is a freelance writer covering gaming news, previews, reviews, interviews and different aspects of the gaming industry, specifically focusing on Xbox and PC gaming on Windows Central. You can find him on Twitter @SamuelTolbert.

8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • K Shan
    This feels just like windows phone. : /

    I don't see how Xbox survives without exclusives. Or Game Pass. Really hope it's not true. I'm so sick of investing money in MS ecosystems only for them to abandoned them for short term profits then years later the CEO admitting it was a mistake.
    Reply
  • fjtorres5591
    The reasonable solution would be to announce a reorg (MS does it all the time) identifying which studios will be multiplat going forward, which will be XBOX exclusive, and which will be project by project.

    A firm commitment to future hardware would be welcome.
    At a minimum, a clear explanation of what "exclusive" means to XBOX is needed.
    Reply
  • fjtorres5591
    K Shan said:
    This feels just like windows phone. : /

    I don't see how Xbox survives without exclusives. Or Game Pass. Really hope it's not true. I'm so sick of investing money in MS ecosystems only for them to abandoned them for short term profits then years later the CEO admitting it was a mistake.
    It is worse for MS: without XBOX consoles, xcloud goes away. Because what they stream is console games. Also, without XBOX consoles, the STEAM BOXES can return to fill that gap, at which point the MS games store for PC has no value.

    Its a cascade of dominoes. "For want of a nail..."
    Reply
  • Phillip68
    I could see all future Activision/Blizzard games staying on Playstation and some Bethesda games like Fallout and Elder Scrolls. Also could see announcement about when old Activision/Blizzard games are coming to Game Pass. Sometimes rumors can be partly true. There are already rumors about the next Xbox console.
    Reply
  • BINARYGOD
    "While I know some are worried about hardware, I'm not expecting that to go anywhere." then you and the people forcing Phil's hand (from above and below, or maybe including Phil himself) are fools.

    If the "Xbox got no games" become literal, and it doesn't actually take that many previous or previously-assume exclusives to give you that in terms of PR and word of mouth - then the console will sell even less, drastically less.

    You say people are locked into ecosystems, but the Switch craps all over that statement because the BC on it is a joke - they expect you to buy everything all over again (and why do people put up with that? hmmm?) and yet it's one of the best-selling consoles in history. Yes, the name of the company matters there too (Nintendo is people's childhood, MS is who use at work, maybe), but Nintendo delivers on games in a space people perceive is stand-apart from Xbox/PS/PC.

    Spencer getting burned by Tomb Raider and his fear of micromanaging a video game disaster meant a decade of fumbling, but the real problem was launching a new do-over gen with no first party (never mind next gen exclusives) and then having a light number of games come out, most of them disappointing and catching him off guard. Many of his thoughts are consumer friendly and he is silver tongued, but my lord did shyness with deals and micromanagement avoidance really screw with this mind and performance.

    But that was in the past, right - they really were going to have games finally come consistently, and they were would now getting billions from ABK, including money from Sony via CoD/etc. - everything falls into place.

    But no, they had an expectedly-to-most weak Xmas, and "only" got nearly 10m consoles per year since launch - how sad for them. Here is the dirty little secret no one wants to admit, especially at MS: Unless your competitor hands it to you or you otherwise overperform despite them not doing that, a bad gen means the next one is a rebuilding gen. Sure, the first two years were kind crap, but hey the second half of the gen seemed to be shaping up to be fine - the sort of time period to sell more boxes and convince people to come on board next gen, especially if your thing next time is even better handled, and maybe Sony fumbles to sweeten the setup.

    But nope - the second half of the year underperforms near predictably to anyone not out to lunch given the stupid corporate expectations, and the CFO and others need that return yesterday - so it's time to effectively burn it all down and go third party - making the console space worse in the process. It's too bad Satnya doesn't understand what he is losing when this happens - at least Xbox had bill gates to push them along. Even after he didn't fear Sony controlling the living room, the understand the idea of a MS product being something kids and adults liked and loved. Satya doesn't, and he has that 3 trillion market cap to lean against, so whatever. IBM 2.0 it is!
    Reply
  • fatpunkslim
    It’s double or nothing, they can really take advantage of this buzz to clarify the situation, announce that the big exclusives will remain on Xbox, that exclusives are important in this game industry, that they will be able to launch small games 2 years later on multiplatform, some GAAS, announce the next Xbox, announce the next activivision games in the gamepass. And there, what was bad buzz can turn into good buzz, the Xbox brand will be grown, they will sell gamepass, they will sell consoles, they will sell games. Because everyone will talk about it, everyone will know that Indiana Jones, Gears 6, Blade, Fable, etc… will only be released on Xbox / PC / cloud / mobile / TV / handled console / gamepass (which is already a lot, Xbox remains an ecosystem much more open than playstation and that's fine). It must be clear, without ambiguity, to kill current rumors and kill future false information.

    On the other hand, if it is to announce that Xbox is going to release everything on others platforms day one. It’s over for the Xbox brand, not just the consoles, for the Xbox brand it’s over! They will become a small publisher that no one talks about anymore, it will become the brand that give up, Xbox will be a joke, the brand will be devalued, the games will be devalued, no one will be there to defend the Xbox brand, they will be prey to trolls and PlayStation players who will criticize the xbox games that are released on their platforms.,without anyone to defend the brand

    The Xbox brand exists because there are Xbox players, Xbox sites, mainstream sites that talk about Xbox because it is a publisher AND a console and hardware manufacturer. If tomorrow. If tomorrow, everything is multiplatform, no more consoles, no more hardware, no more branding, no more third-party publishers who make games for Xbox, no more marketing which holds essentially because Xbox has a console. And that will result in fewer games, fewer gamepass subscribers, fewer sales of everything. It will become like Sega, which will fall into oblivion. What Xbox must understand is that having a big community like Xbox players behind you is a strength, a privilege, an opportunity, they must use it to move forward and not go against them, that would be a very serious and irreversible error.

    It may seem like a simple equation for accountants and other financiers at Xbox, but it's not simple at all, the negative repercussions will be enormous for the business.
    Reply
  • fjtorres5591
    fatpunkslim said:
    It’s double or nothing, they can really take advantage of this buzz to clarify the situation, announce that the big exclusives will remain on Xbox, that exclusives are important in this game industry, that they will be able to launch small games 2 years later on multiplatform, some GAAS, announce the next Xbox, announce the next activivision games in the gamepass. And there, what was bad buzz can turn into good buzz, the Xbox brand will be grown, they will sell gamepass, they will sell consoles, they will sell games. Because everyone will talk about it, everyone will know that Indiana Jones, Gears 6, Blade, Fable, etc… will only be released on Xbox / PC / cloud / mobile / TV / handled console / gamepass (which is already a lot, Xbox remains an ecosystem much more open than playstation and that's fine). It must be clear, without ambiguity, to kill current rumors and kill future false information.

    On the other hand, if it is to announce that Xbox is going to release everything on others platforms day one. It’s over for the Xbox brand, not just the consoles, for the Xbox brand it’s over! They will become a small publisher that no one talks about anymore, it will become the brand that give up, Xbox will be a joke, the brand will be devalued, the games will be devalued, no one will be there to defend the Xbox brand, they will be prey to trolls and PlayStation players who will criticize the xbox games that are released on their platforms.,without anyone to defend the brand

    The Xbox brand exists because there are Xbox players, Xbox sites, mainstream sites that talk about Xbox because it is a publisher AND a console and hardware manufacturer. If tomorrow. If tomorrow, everything is multiplatform, no more consoles, no more hardware, no more branding, no more third-party publishers who make games for Xbox, no more marketing which holds essentially because Xbox has a console. And that will result in fewer games, fewer gamepass subscribers, fewer sales of everything. It will become like Sega, which will fall into oblivion. What Xbox must understand is that having a big community like Xbox players behind you is a strength, a privilege, an opportunity, they must use it to move forward and not go against them, that would be a very serious and irreversible error.

    It may seem like a simple equation for accountants and other financiers at Xbox, but it's not simple at all, the negative repercussions will be enormous for the business.
    Not much to argue.

    A point to add: the assumption people buy XBOX consoles in lieu of Playstations is...incomplete. Some do. But by now the two primary reasons are because they are invested in the ecosystem *and* the types of games and franchises that define it, *and* in lieu of gaming PCs they can afford or refuse to buy into (the regular uogrades and constant tweaking). These are not people who would be satisfied on Playstation.
    Conversely, what kind of market would you expect of Playstation for FLIGHT SIM, FORZA, AGE OF EMPIRES, HALO WARS, GROUNDED, etc? The platforms support different communities with different tastes and interests. Playstations cannot sub for XBOXes nor vice versa and the same apples to a large extent to the games.

    It is probably tempting to the non-gamer beancounters at MS to see the Sony userbase as fertile soil for sales in 2024 given their drought of exclusives and non-remake;sequels. But that is at best temporary. And undercutting their own long term platform viability with third parties (it wasn't long ago that Kotick threatened to take COD Sony only to squeeze XBOX royalties by half, remember?) will only send MS down the Dreamcast road.

    Which isn't to say that sending a select few older properties that fit the other patforms would be disastrous. Hi-Fi rush to SWITCH makes sense. REDFALL to Sony (now that its functional) would fit. Maybe GEARS TACTICS to see how that community reacts to a genre not to common on that side. Plus, of course, the existing multiplat franchises they bought. No sense devaluing those.

    But neither does it make sense to devalue the core platform that underpins the brand's community.

    With today's gaming capable AMD APU's a STEAM console based on a juiced up STEAM DECK architecture is quite viable at $499 and becomes more so if third parties start to shy away from supporting XBOX. leaving that community ripe for the picking. And even without a STEAM console, it is only a matter of time before LENOVO and ASUS go after the low/mid gaming PC market with their handheld derivatives.

    Going after the Sony community with XBOX signature content isn't a path to riches. It may simplepy grease the path for competitors to finish the job.
    Reply
  • GraniteStateColin
    First, I hope MS does not go hardware agnostic in supporting everyone with all games. I think this would be a mistake for a variety of reasons, one of which that I've not seen listed much (maybe touched on) is that the timing is right before MS can know how well the current strategy of acquiring and growing its library of exclusives is working. Several more exclusive games are going to launch this year, along with updates, DLC, and improvements to Starfield. To make any change to announced strategy at this point prevents learning how having a good library of exclusives helps the brand.

    For that reason, even if the execs think they want to open the doors to selling on competing hardware, they should wait a year to see what 2024 brings. There is value in that data and it becomes impossible to collect even from a mere announcement that they're considering selling cross-platform.

    On the other hand, IF MS does start selling cross-platform, I think it can be done in a way that doesn't destroy Xbox. They could even do it in way that boosts Xbox. For example:

    1. If they announce long timed exclusives (as Sam Tolbert suggested in the article), this both opens PS players up to franchises they may not otherwise experience, and teaches them that they can get them earlier with an Xbox. If I knew, say, that ES6 was coming out 2 years sooner on Xbox, I would definitely go for the Xbox, but only because I'm familiar with those games. If I had no experience with the franchise, I wouldn't care. Exposure to franchises can steer customers for earlier access.

    2. They gain goodwill for doing this, where Sony (at least today) does not with ever release its exclusives on Xbox. MS would be the company that puts its games on other platforms. Sony and Nintendo don't do this. This goodwill has some value. It may not be large among customers directly, but in the media, I think helps make MS the "good guy" in the space (or at least harder to paint them as the bad guy).

    3. They could do it around Game Pass and put the pressure on Sony and others to permit it. They could publicly announce that they will allow any third party hardware access to MS games via Game Pass. If Sony then refuses, because Sony does not want Game Pass on PS, then it's clearly Sony who is rejecting the games, not MS for keeping them exclusive. (I don't give much weight to this one because they wouldn't need a big press event next week for this kind of messaging.)
    Reply