Microsoft has had an interesting few years. After largely leading the generation with the Xbox 360, they launched the Xbox One, failing to gain any ground against rival PlayStation 4. Amidst all of this, Xbox was marked by a growing identity crisis, about what Xbox is, what its place in the gaming industry is, what Microsoft brings to the table for games, and whether there even should be an Xbox.
These are all questions that Microsoft has sought to answer over the last three years- and these are questions that led to the creation of the Xbox One S and Xbox One X, Xbox boss Phil Spencer told Wired in an extensive interview.
“I totally understand what you’re talking about in terms of the launch of Xbox One and that TV stuff, and Kinect. It was a vision that was different,” Spencer said. “I understood the vision that the prior team had. Hopefully, our last three years shows that a focus on the gaming customer is critically important to us.”
Spencer pointed out that Microsoft had immense support to stay in the gaming realm for up high- from Satya Nadella, the newly appointed CEO of Microsoft, himself. “It’s been nice to see what Satya Nadella talks about now. The support we have for being in the games industry and not being something else is incredibly high,” he said.
It’s interesting to see Microsoft double down on video games- and it truly is indisputable that they do bring a lot to the table, whether thanks to their excellent hardware like the Xbox One X, or excellent services like Xbox Live, Xbox Game Pass, and initiatives like Backward Compatibility and Cross Platform Play. All I can hope for now is that they start impressing us on the games front again, like they once did.
