Phil Spencer: Less Third Party Deals, More First Party Exclusives for Xbox Going Forward

Nintendo has always had an incredibly strong first party. Sony built up their first party to get differentiating exclusives once the exodus of third party games started en masse from the PS3 last generation. Microsoft, on the other hand, has always had a weak and shallow first party catalog, in spite of having some very successful franchises, and a catalog of classic games thanks to their ownership of Rare.

That said, that may be about to change soon, as Phil Spencer, the head honcho over at Xbox, is promising that Microsoft will focus more on first party exclusives, rather than on securing third party deals, which either result in partial exclusivity, or timed exclusivity.

“My Strategy is more around our own first party franchises, and investing in franchises that we own. I want to have strong third party relations, but paying for many third party exclusives isn’t our long term strategy,” said Spencer. It’s great to have Tomb Raider as part of our line-up, but investing in first party, you’ll see more of that at Gamescom, is really core to our strategy.”

This sounds great to me, honestly! More secured reasons to purchase an Xbox console going forward will always be welcome, as far as I am concerned.