A lot has been made of the death of exclusives on Microsoft’s Xbox platform– the Xbox consoles have always generally had a shortage of exclusives, especially compared to PlayStation or Nintendo, but Xbox One has seen a slow leakage of all of its major exclusives to other platforms- mostly Windows 10 PCs, with the movement having been spearheaded by none other than Microsoft themselves.
A lot of people think this may signal a slow shift away from Xbox hardware for Microsoft- however, speaking at Microsoft’s Spring Showcase held last week in San Francisco (with the transcription provided by DualShockers), Xbox head Phil Spencer reaffirmed Microsoft’s commitment to Xbox, and its players- in spite of the lack of exclusives at this point.
“We’re here today to see what I think, this is my opinion, is our best first half of the year lineup that we’ve ever had at Xbox. If we look at the quality of games, and in 2015 I thought it was incredible, it was a good year for gaming, we’re starting off 2016, and we’re incredibly proud of the games planned that we have frankly on Windows 10 and on Xbox One.
“We have a vision that we believe puts the gamer at the center of everything we’re doing. 100% of our focus is on making sure that games that people can play on our platform are as great as they can be,” Spencer continued.
“We spend zero time thinking about what games other people can’t play. It’s not something that’s core to who we are. We’re embracing the gamers that are on our platforms, we’re incredibly proud of the breadth of games that are there, and our long-term commitment is that we’ll stay exactly focused on that. What games can you play on Microsoft platforms, making sure that it’s the best platform, best service, best content, best games that you can find. That is our long-term commitment to you.
“We’ll continue our story. We’ll be at GDC. I think this year’s Build conference, which is Microsoft’s development conference, will see more focus on gaming that we’ll ever had, and it’s hard to believe, but we’ve already had quite a few E3 planning meetings. We’re deep into what E3 is gonna look like this year. And yet again, I think it will be a great time for both the industry and for Xbox gamers.”
It will be interesting to see how Microsoft continue to justify the existence of flagship Xbox hardware, without having the appropriate exclusives and incentives to attract users.