The Xbox One X Is Not For Everybody, Says Microsoft’s Phil Spencer

The Xbox One X is so expensive- almost prohibitively so. For the system that Microsoft was pitching as the great reversal of fortunes for the Xbox brand, was it wise to have such an expensive console that might price itself out of the market? What was the reasoning behind the decision at all?

Speaking to Giant Bomb, Spencer explained that the Xbox One X is for a very specific audience, and that it was never meant to be a mass market driver. ‘Xbox One X is specifically a console, so it’s for someone who want to play on a console, who wants the most powerful console, a premium experience… it’s not for everyone, just like the Elite Controller, a $150 controller is not for everybody,” Spencer explained.

“Some of you just get the controller you have, and go and play your games, and so we’re going to play a lot of Xbox One S’s. We’ll sell more S’s than X’s, because the price point is important to a lot of people. But there are some people out there who go and buy a Titan X, and put it in their PC, and it’s for a specific thing, and there’s also people on the console side that buy a PS4 Pro or an Elite controller, and want the best experience that their console ecosystem offers. And I wanted to make sure that the best that Xbox offers would be the best thing that anybody is offering right now.”

I get the explanation, I understand it, it’s a sensible one… but then there was a disconnect in the messaging- Microsoft pitched it as the next major evolution of Xbox, and the Xbox One X cannot be that if it’s only accessible to a fraction of the Xbox userbase and market.

We’ll see how the Xbox One X does when it launches on November 7 later this year.