The response to XBOX chief content officer Matt Booty having recently said during an episode of the official XBOX podcast that the company’s upcoming events will feature clarity on all the platforms that a game is coming to, including competing ones, has not been positive. However, XBOX CEO Asha Sharma has taken to social media to reassure fans of the platform that the company is having discussions about how to approach this for its shows.
Responding to a social media user who said that they would have liked to see XBOX focusing on its own platform in its showcases by only showing its own logos at the end, Sharma took full responsibility for it, saying, “Seeing the feedback in logos. It was a miss, and I own it. We are talking about how we adjust for future XBOX shows.”
XBOX revealing all of the platforms that games might be coming to by showcasing logos for PlayStation and Steam at the end of trailers, for example, has become a somewhat hotly-debated issue. This largely stems from the fact that the company has decided in recent times to move away from platform-exclusives. Even tentpole first-party franchises, like Halo and Forza, have slowly making their way on to competing consoles, leading to XBOX seeing even more revenue. However, fans of XBOX have wanted to see more exclusives so that there are more reasons to actually buy XBOX hardware.
A report from back in April had indicated that there were already discussions taking place at Microsoft about the potential return to XBOX exclusives, and whether it makes sense for the company to focus on its own hardware ecosystem or to become a multi-platform publisher. According to Windows Central’s Jez Corden, these discussions were part of larger ones about bringing back the XBOX community.
“You know I said they were thinking about adjusting Game Pass, there’s a very very very big discussion about the exclusivity stuff going on right now internally,” he said during a podcast. “I think they do recognize the value, you know, it’s just what type of company you want to be at the end of the day. Do you want to be an ecosystem company first or do you want to be a publisher company first?”
He even made a note of how Microsoft has had trouble with keeping up with its hardware platforms, pointing to the Microsoft Surface line-up. While the tablet was launched to quite a bit of hype, Corden described it as eventually becoming “a shadow of its former self.” Ultimately, however, the company’s decision will come down to whether or not it makes sense to leave money on the table.
“You can’t do both well, either the hardware operation will shrink to basically what Surface is now, a shadow of its former self, not its deathbed,” he said. “Do you really want that for your Xbox brand, which is the only consumer-facing ecosystem that has any form of clout with consumers? And Satya said in the leaked conversation with the staff that Xbox also has value on the corporate side, because when I meet with a lot of executives, they don’t want to talk about cloud, they want to talk about Xbox. They want to talk about Halo. They want to talk about Xbox games. It’s where you reach your consumers when they’re not working. I think increasingly they recognise this. But the discussions are ongoing because at the end of the day, they leave money on the table, and it’s hard to fight against the spreadsheet.”
