While there have been a few reports in recent times that XBOX might be looking to go back to having exclusive games for its consoles, the CEO of the division, Asha Sharma, has now outright spoken about this. Speaking at a Bloomberg Live event, as caught by VideoGamesChronicle, Sharma said that the company would “reevaluate” how it looks at XBOX exclusives, especially since more and more of its first-party games have been seeing multiplatform releases.
Sharma noted that the decision to go back to having XBOX-exclusive releases essentially comes down to striking a balance between growing its audience by being available as widely as possible and trying to sell its own platforms.
“It’s a tough topic,” said Sharma when asked about the company’s plans for exclusive releases. “Look, we’re the number two publisher in the world, and in order to be a great publisher, you must have your games reach large audiences to play. At the same time, we’re increasingly becoming a platform, and in order to become a platform, you must have exclusive content and services. And so, we’re looking at that very closely.”
Further in her statement, Sharma also indicated that XBOX might take a more granular approach to future game releases, and decide whether something should be exclusive to the platform on a game-by-game basis. In the meantime, however, she noted that the company is keeping an eye on the industry to learn from what other companies faced with similar choices would do.
“I think that we have to be very thoughtful about each title, on how we want to think about it, and learn from some similar cases in the industry, and that’s what we’re doing,” she said.
Further in her discussions, Sharma spoke about her first hundred days as the CEO of XBOX, and how the company plans on keeping up the momentum in its attempts to revive the brand going forward.
“We’ve done so much to start to revive Xbox,” she said. “We’ve shipped more in the last 100 days than we have in the last year. We’ve been able to reset Game Pass after an eight-month decline and it’s now returned to growth and expanding retention.”
“Most importantly, we’re starting to get back to being closer to our players and community. I think in the next 100 days, we have to reset the business. We need to look at how we’re investing, how we’re prioritising, and change how we operate, in order to return to growth and be where the world plays.”
Back in April, Sharma had spoken about the possibility of future XBOX games being exclusive to the platform. While she didn’t commit one way or another, she did note that the company is taking a “data-driven approach and a strategic-driven approach” at the subject. She continued, “And then we’ll look at our principles, and we’ll make some calls. So, we’ll share more when we’re ready.” As for when we might see the results of these discussions and decisions, Sharma said that there’s “Nothing we’re ready to commit to,” at least for now.
“I want to make the right decision, not the fastest decision,” she explained.