It’s hard to believe at this point that the Xbox One is actually beginning to build momentum against the PS4. Though the latter still leads in sales, the console is selling strongly and has a good range of exclusives this season, including Halo 5: Guardians and Rise of the Tomb Raider. Remember 2013, when the console was universally reviled for its restrictive practices? We’ve come a long way since then.
GamingBolt spoke to Anshu Mor, director of interactive entertainment business for Microsoft India, about the company recovering and returning to the focus to games and services. What motivated the company in that direction? As Mor states, “The simplest answer to that is consumers. If you’ve seen what we’ve been doing with Xbox One, ever since the launch, you see the amount of features and functionalities that have been added in every update. The console is very different from what it was when it was launched and all of that is happening because consumers are giving us a certain feedback and what they want to see and we are implementing that.
“You would have seen the same thing in Windows 10, with this whole Windows Insider Program I think it’s a mentality that the organization thinks and believes in deeply, that listen to the consumers and if you know wherever we can you know tweak the product and the functionality to offer what the consumers want.
It’s not as though the entertainment portfolio is completely dead for Xbox One though. Despite the closure of Xbox Entertainment Studios, games like the upcoming Quantum Break are still incorporating live-action TV shows into their narrative.
Mor stated that, “I believe that entertainment portfolio is extremely important. When they see a single device which can do everything, now think of it this way – when somebody buys an Xbox they will not say ‘hey I do not play games on it.’ So they will play games, they just need to understand what kind of games that are available for them.
“Then they look at the TV integration part of it which is such a huge benefit because they’re in a household and all the people who are using Xbox One right now, just to switch between playing a game and just switching to TV is so, so simple and that’s a very cool feature and that too with voice commands. And then the entertainment content because we do believe that this audience segment which is very big on entertainment, right? They’re the ones who like their movies and their DVD, CDs and then music etc so it is undoubtedly extremely important.”
The biggest update that the Xbox One has seen thus far will arrive in November with the New Xbox One Experience that adds backwards compatibility for Xbox 360 games, a revamped interface based on Windows 10 and much more. What are your thoughts on the current momentum of the console? Let us know below.
