Microsoft has had its work cut out for it this generation. Despite some fairly strong exclusives for the Xbox One in the past few years, sales are pretty much dwarfed by Sony’s PlayStation 4. There has been plenty of improvement though – sales are up thanks to the release of the Xbox One S and Project Scorpio, due in Holiday 2017, has somewhat of a better reception around it than the PS4 Pro thanks to being able to render games in native 4K.
Speaking to NZ Gamer, Xbox boss Phil Spencer talked about where he sees Microsoft at the end of this generation and whether it will actually catch up to the competition. Spencer noted that, “The thing that’s probably most important to me and the team is not a direct competition with Sony and PlayStation in terms of catch-up. And people question whether I’d say that if we were in the lead, but I honestly kind of believe that. We don’t drive our program, thinking about how that’s the primary goal.
“I want to be the best platform for developers and gamers. I want gamers to feel like they’re best gameplay experience is on an Xbox – from an Xbox Live performance standpoint, from a feature set like cross-play and mods, and game previews and stuff like XPA that we’ve been adding.
“So I’ll say at the end of this generation – and I don’t think you and I know what that is yet – but I’ll say I want Xbox to be seen as a great consumer, gaming brand. Where gamers feel like they have the best experience from the capability of the hardware, all the way to the service. And developers see it as the best platform for them to deliver their best work, and make the most money.”
Will the Xbox One actually achieve that? We’ll find out in the coming months and year especially with so many exclusives like Gears of War 4, Dead Rising 4, Halo Wars 2, Scalebound and more on the way.