In a recent interview with the GamerTag Radio Podcast, Phil Spencer, Head of Gaming at Microsoft, explained why the company decided to not have any exclusives in the initial years of Xbox Series X's release. Spencer referred to his speech at Xbox Spring Showcase in 2016 when the company decided to release all Xbox One exclusives on Windows 10 PC. Of course, that was when the player-centric, instead of device-centric, vision came into the picture.
Spencer stated that when he announced his new vision in 2016, he left many people, including the ones on his team, confused. Now that things are falling into place, Spencer decided to stand up and give a roadmap describing his vision, a vision that puts players in the center instead of the device or ecosystem itself. According to Spencer, his vision has led to substantial growth in the number of people enjoying their games. Currently, two billion players are playing games, and in the next decade the number is expected to grow to four billion.
Spencer reckons that his vision will lead to the industry's growth, allowing for the best creation of games, new creators coming aboard, and new gamers will find a broad platform to be attracted toward. As a platform, Microsoft plans on establishing the broadest platform for gamers and having the broadest set of games. Spencer added that the company wants to give the ability to any player who wishes to play any of their games on a console or PC. With work on Project xCloud, Microsoft is also planning to offer amazing games to people, who don't want to own either a console or PC.
Spencer also mentioned that not everybody can afford to spend $60 on a game. This makes the Xbox Game Pass an attractive option.
Talking about exclusives, Spencer mentioned that from his research, it is evident that players want the widest selection of games to play with their friends across different platforms and developers want their creations to reach as many people as possible. And Microsoft is adamant about having this vision accomplished.
So what does all of this actually mean? Basically, Spencer is saying that there will not be exclusives for the new Xbox console because all new games from Microsoft will be available on as many devices as possible. This means, all the early Xbox Series X games will also run on PC, Xbox One, and possibly mobile via xCloud. These games will still be Microsoft-exclusive, but will not necessarily be tied to the latest console.
