In a recent interview with GamesRadar, head of Xbox Phil Spencer talked about the future of Xbox Game Pass on other platforms alongside a number of other things including his strategy for Xbox exclusives. During the interview, he revealed that the brand isn’t looking to copy successful strategies of competitors.
Phil Spencer prefaces by paying respects to other platforms – presumably Sony and Nintendo, and talks about how the team wants to do its own thing. He goes in length about creativity being an integral part of the strategy, which certainly seems tantalizing right now.
“Our strategy is not to just go be like someone else. I get a push sometimes of ‘where’s your version of this or that game?’ I’ve been in this industry for a long time, I have a ton of respect for creators on all platforms, and I know many, many of them. But it’s good if we’re doing something different than what other platforms are doing. We’re not in the business of just trying to create a green version of somebody else’s blue or red coloured platform. That’s not the example of creativity that I want to see in the games industry.”
Xbox has almost 2 dozen studios under its belt, and almost each studio is master of its own craft – for example: 343 Industries with first-person-shooters, The Coalition with third-person shooters, and the like. It seems that Microsoft’s drought of exclusives is ending soon, and Spencer’s decision to give freedom to its studios to make the games they want is certainly a great move.