The last few weeks have been far from the best for Microsoft and their businesses in the video game industry. The blockade of the British CMA to the purchase of Activision Blizzard was added to the collapse of the sales of the Xbox Series X | S and the very poor launch of redfall. It was in this context that Phil SpencerCEO of Microsoft Gaming, acknowledged that Xbox no longer has a way to win the console war against PlayStation.
The statements of the Xbox leader can generate more or less surprises, but they are born from a genuine statement. According to the executive, his company has already assumed that taking market share away from Sony is impossible; nevertheless, They have turned that honesty into a broader commercial and editorial strategy that today is no longer limited to stomping on the world of consoles, but also on PC, the cloud and mobile games.
Phil Spencer’s statements came to light after an interview with Kinda Funny Games. In it, the Xbox boss dedicated a large part of his participation to accepting the errors caused by the recent launch of redfall. He shooter Arkane’s cooperative was one of the most anticipated AAA exclusives on the platform, but its debut was marked by technical failures and broken promises that the manager did not evade. And at the end of the conversation, he asserted that while the console remains at the core of the Xbox brand, creating great games is no longer enough to reverse the trend in competition with PlayStation.
“Certainly, we remain focused on making the experience with our console the best it can be. […] We are not in the business of selling more consoles than Sony or Nintendo. There is no big solution or win for us, and I know that will upset a lot of people.. But it’s just the truth,” Spencer said. Furthermore, he maintained that with Xbox in third place in hardware sales, reversing the console war is impossible.
The console war and the waste of the Xbox One
It is clear that the console war extends much further back in time than the competition between Xbox and PlayStation. However, it is also a reality that Microsoft and Sony encouraged it, and have publicly acknowledged it. In fact, Peter Moore, one of the great figures behind the original Xbox and Xbox 360, assured that what they wanted was to challenge each other, not create division in the community.
While it’s true that the competition between the two biggest consoles on the market never went away, Phil Spencer argues that there was one key element that hurt them: the lack of exclusive games on the Xbox One.
“Many times I’ve seen the comment that if you make great games, everything will be reversed. It’s not true that if we go out and make great games, we’ll suddenly see a dramatic change in console market share. We lost the worst generation to lose with the Xbox One, where everyone built their digital library of games.. We want our Xbox community to feel amazing, but this idea that if we just focus on great games for our consoles, we’re somehow going to win the war, it really doesn’t fit with most people’s reality.”
Of course, many may see Phil Spencer’s statements as a simple justification for the aggressive focus on Xbox Game Pass and Cloud Gaming. Or, even, as an excuse for having spent all of 2022 without releasing an exclusive AAA game for Xbox Series X | S. It is true that for this year, those from Redmond still have their silver bullet left: Starfield. Although the CEO of Microsoft Gaming is convinced that the long-awaited Bethesda title will not change history either, no matter how successful it turns out to be.
“There is no world in which Starfield be an 11 out of 10 and people go out and sell their PS5s. It’s just not going to happen”he asserted, adding: “I know some people want us to be the best green version of what the boys in blue do. [Playstation]. All I’m going to tell you is that there’s no victory for Xbox by staying in someone else’s wake.” As much as they may not like it, it’s clear that in Redmond the console war discussion has already died down.