Yesterday Phil Spencer, Xbox lead, took part in a candid interview with Kinda Funny Xcast, and alongside another cheeky shelf reveal where we saw the ASUS ROG Ally, he answered some pretty tough questions from the hosts and the Xbox Community.
Spencer didn't hold back when discussing his disappointment with the launch of Redfall, and the current state of Xbox when it comes to releasing high-quality games. Quite rightly, the community is questioning right now if Xbox has the ability to deliver games that deserve the inflated $70 price point. Redfall being the first exclusive out of the gate at this price hasn't filled them with confidence. In our Redfall review, we detailed how the game thoroughly failed to live up to the marketing cycle it generated, hiding glimmers of fun beneath 30 hours of drudgery.
There has already been heated debate over the past few weeks about how dedicated Xbox is to its console fanbase, given the focus we've seen on growing the cloud, and this being what Xbox has focused on in their regulatory dealings in their attempted acquisition of Activision Blizzard King. Some have interpreted Phil's comments as "giving up" on the console market race all together, but that's not the case, because Xbox has long been out of the race to win any so-called "console war."
Play anywhere, on anything you want.
The outrage comes following a question asked to Spencer in the Q&A segment of the podcast, he was asked specifically if he felt that Xbox had lost focus in the console market, given the strides they have taken to improve the PC and Cloud experiences. Spencer replied, "We have a different vision you know, it's play the games you want, with the people you want, anywhere you want." He elaborated "We want Xbox to be something that people who buy our console can feel like they are a member, who are playing on PC, who are playing on [Xbox cloud], that they feel like they're full members of our ecosystem."
The following comment is what is causing much melodrama over on social media "We're not in the business of out-consoling Sony, or out-consoling Nintendo. There isn't really a great solution or win for us and I know that will upset a ton of people ..." he wasn't wrong, "but it's just the truth of the matter." He continued to talk about being third place in the console market to "strong" competitors Sony and Nintendo, then how best Xbox could compete and still ensure their console fanbase felt rewarded for their investment in the platform.
"Out there I see commentary that if you just build great games everything would turn around, it's just not true that if we go off and build great games all of a sudden you're going to see console share shift in some dramatic way. We lost the worst generation to lose in the Xbox One generation where everybody built their digital library of games."
Some people haven't appreciated Phil's honesty here and see it as admitting defeat, but Spencer is just laying out the reality of Microsoft's place in the gaming industry right now. Most gamers are already committed to a platform of their choice and have invested in this. Playstation has been the dominant console since its release in 1994, and since the doomed Xbox One generation, its lead is insurmountable. Spencer is describing how Xbox's focus needs to be on other avenues to compete and ultimately grow.
This is exactly what they are doing with PC, Cloud Gaming and Xbox Game Pass – competing but not in a market based solely on what plastic box is sitting by your television. Spencer said "There is no world where Starfield is 11/10 and people start selling their consoles," emphasizing the idea that people aren't going to suddenly switch their main console on the basis of a couple of games.
These words are being twisted to fit a narrative that Xbox doesn't care about its core console audience and shifting console units. But what Spencer said isn't new or shocking information, the goal for Xbox as a Play Anywhere system has been the vision for a long time now, repeated across several previous interviews. Spencer wasn't trying to write off Xbox's prospects of making great games, simply stating that the games alone wouldn't win some arbitrary war over console sales.
Xbox, Sony, and Nintendo are not sports teams like some hardcore fans seem to desire. All three are making waves in the gaming industry and catering to slightly different audiences, and most importantly, they are all making money. Whether one 'team' is first, second third in the race shouldn't be of any concern to the players, we should just play on the platform we enjoy. If you enjoy and can afford all three, well your cup runneth over with choice.
We've already seen the other major players shift their ambitions to cater to specific niches. PlayStation threw in the towel with the PlayStation Vita, since it couldn't build the types of games that appealed to the dominant Nintendo 3DS crowd of the time. After the GameCube, we've seen Nintendo throw in the towel with high-end hardware, opting instead for a low-power, highly-disruptive handheld in the form of the Nintendo Switch. We're seeing similar from Microsoft over the past few years, evolving its strategy to bring the Xbox experience to a broader set of devices. The model looks to be a hybrid of Tencent's hardwareless multi-service approach while serving Microsoft's traditional Xbox audience in addition to, rather than in spite of.
Phil Spencer already echoed very similar comments in his interview in 2020 with The Washington Post on how Xbox was moving away from the traditional console war mentality to focus on delivering games and services across multiple platforms. This doesn't translate into not caring about console sales, merely expanding into other avenues as just focusing on console won't set them apart from the competition.
Starfield and shifting units
With Redfall not living up to expectations, the pressure on Starfield to deliver on the AAA games front is heavier than ever. I myself have spouted on Twitter about Starfield having the ability to move consoles if marketed right, but you won't actually need a console to play it. Starfield will be on PC, on cloud devices. It probably doesn't matter to Xbox if it shifts consoles or not, but that shouldn't affect your own personal enjoyment of the game. If the game is amazing, and we certainly hope it will be, it won't be a slam dunk on Sony, players that are genuinely interested in the game and already have a Playstation may just play on another device. Whether you play the game on an Xbox via the cloud, on Windows or PC Game Pass, or Steam, Microsoft's investments in this agnostic approach mean you can play it where you want, and that's the beauty of the Xbox ecosystem. Nobody asks Tencent, the industry's biggest player, where its hardware sales are.
It's not all about consoles, and it hasn't been for years.
